By Staff Sgt. Rebekah-mae Bruns
ABU NUWAS, Iraq -- Swiftly moving down the bank of the biblically famed Tigris River, 1st Lt. Brian Mason, of Jonesboro, Ark., yells out to a group of surrounding Soldiers trying to keep pace with his fast walk.
"This fence needs to go," he said pointing to a rusted fence line with trees and shrubbery twining through its links. "And when you're tearing out the fence, try to leave the trees."Mason curtly gives his guidelines for what he wants done. "Make it look pretty," he said. "This one's real important."
A short time later, dirt clouds and the sounds of heavy machinery fill the afternoon air as bulldozers, bucket loaders and chainsaws hither to and fro wildly setting to work Mason's directives.
The instructions Mason gave his platoon of engineers from the 39th Brigade Combat Team are for a clean up project on a once prominent park that lay along the historical waters of Baghdad, Iraq. The famous park, named after an Iraqi poet, Abu Nuwas, from the 9th century, was closed to the public after Saddam came to power. Over the years it has steadily collected trash turning it into a ramshackle of concrete chunks and dead foliage.
Cleaning up the park has been a welcome break for the engineers, whose tasks, until recently, have dealt with everything from managing the setup and protection of Camp Cooke in Taji - an area just 10 miles north of Baghdad - to manning bridges and hauling away trash.
"Another 10,000 loads of junk and this place [Camp Cooke] will look about right," said Sgt 1st Class James Simmons, of Russellville, jokingly as he sipped his morning coffee.Managing the living space at Camp Cooke and escorting explosive ordinance disposal teams has left little time for community projects.
The park is the engineer's first and with it there seems to come an energizing attitude."It's going to make someone happy," said Sgt. Andrew Danneker, of Williamsport, Pa. "It makes it that much easier when you know someone is going to enjoy it." It's not long before several energetic children pile into the park looking to see what the commotion is about. Lifting his chin with an air of ownership, a young boy asks in near perfect English, "Whatta you guys doing here?"
"We're cleaning this place up so it can be a park for families," replied a Soldier."I sure hope so," said the boy with a tone of half doubt and half hope. Dreaming in IraqThe renovation of the park has long been a dream of the Iraqi people. It began in 1979 when plans were drawn up for a garden and cultural museum that would sit on a manmade island in the Tigris River. But Saddam's government never completed the design and development.
In 1981, the mayor of Baghdad commissioned a design for the park again, but this time the plans called for a riverfront park, elaborate gardens, and urban recreational activities involving performing arts. The design also integrated a national library and a variety of art institutes that would have made it the cultural epicenter for Iraq.
The cost of the proposed project was $7 billion. The dream never came to fruition.
An Old Dream Wakes to a New EraMore than 25 years after the park's initial plans, a tall American general stands determined to restore the park to its original splendor. "Do you see what we could do down here?" asked Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division.
"Three weeks ago those fish restaurants were closed and now they're open."Chiarelli with the recently elected mayor of Baghdad, Dr. Alaa Tamimi, to discuss needs for reconstruction in the city. Tamimi brought up the park."When the mayor mentioned it, it resonated," Chiarelli said.
"I realized the importance of it. It's like any city that has a place that exemplifies the spirit of the city, some place like no where else that is different from anything you've ever seen." Tamimi quickly got to work and had fresh plans drawn up by a local team of Iraqi engineers. The latest design included water fountains, art galleries, a river walk spanning over 3 kilometers, and the reopening of restaurants that once served fish caught from the Tigris River. The neighborhood adjacent to the park was once filled with shops and specialty stores.
Families from all around came to enjoy the creative atmosphere. But over the span of 30 years and three wars, the shops began to close. A previously enchanted and wistful, artistic vision was replaced by concertina wire-lined streets and tall, obtrusive, concrete barricades.
Enter USAID, a sub agency of the U.S. State Department for International Development. The agency, which implements a variety of economic recovery programs throughout the world, agreed to help teach local Iraqis how to procure small business loans through private banks to jump start the businesses around the park.
Chiarelli wanted the ball rolling."Invite the banks down and bring [the USAID] here [to the park]," said Chiarelli. "Make it easy for them, stick benches out, invite them, hold classes here on how to start a business so that they don't have to travel, peddle it up and down the street guys and make it easy for them to get this started."A short distance away, seven 20-ton dump trucks rumbled off carrying full loads of trash and underbrush.
"Am I crazy here guys?" said Chiarelli throwing his hands up in reference to the park. "Because if I'm crazy, someone please tell me." A few mumbled no's came from the small crowd of men."That's the problem; no one wants to tell a two star general he's crazy," Chiarelli said smiling as he threw his arm around his project manager Lt. Col. Daniel Hendrickson of the Oregon based 2nd Battalion 162nd Infantry.
The Tipping PointChiarelli isn't crazy but he is inspired. The idea for the park, as Chiarelli puts it, belongs to the Iraqi people. Subsequently, the design and the actual renovation are also in custody of the Iraqi people. But the Multi-National Forces are backing the high profiled venture with troop labor, for the initial clean up, and with appropriated funds from the Commander's Emergency Response Program, which are set aside for projects such as this.
The project manager, Hendrickson, and Chiarelli both are adamant about the Iraqi people being the ones to breathe the long anticipated vision to life."This park is for the people of Baghdad," Hendrickson said. "So it needs to be built and designed, for and by them."Chiarelli is taking a more social approach to the problems Iraq faces rather than a "blazing guns tactic." A book called The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, moved the general to actively engage in what could be a defining role in Iraq's success.The passage, read by Chiarelli, examines various social epidemics that surround cultures and how to change the environment in a positive manner to affect the negative outbreak by starting one's own epidemic.
The most notable example it gives is the significant drop in crime in New York City in the late 80s and early 90s when citizens made an effort to rid public spaces of graffiti and other symbols of lawlessness. The theory was these signs of disorder created an epidemic of crime and that cleaning up the environment would have an impact on reducing crime. The theory worked.
Chiarelli and Hendrickson's goal is to infect the Baghdad population with hope and positive changes that will allow it's own epidemic to occur.
"The park is the epicenter," Hendrickson said. "If we can restore the park to a nice condition, then hopefully it will continue to spread onto Abu Nuwas street and then the next block."Plans are already well under way by the mayor of Baghdad and the Multi-National Forces to help revitalize the Abu Nuwas business district to its former state. Chiarelli said it will give them hope that things can change.
| Date Taken: | 08.02.2004 |
| Date Posted: | 08.02.2004 15:49 |
| Story ID: | 181 |
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