Rotary Bulletin - June 4, 2009
Our speaker, Brad Higgins, the Assistant Secretary of State for Finance through December 2008, gave a riveting talk about the logistical and financial problems the US has had to deal with in Iraq. Brad is a Columbia Law graduate and former partner in Goldman Sachs who took the last five years off from Wall Street to work for the US war effort, including two tours of duty in Baghdad. He is one of the real unsung heroes that this community produces.
He focused on the unbelievably high cost of doing anything in Iraq. When people ask him why everything is so expensive, he says that for every civilian aid project, like installing a new power grid in an Iraqi town, it takes 250 US soldiers to guard the two civilian workers. He compared it to trying to paint a wet lighting rod during a thunderstorm.
Just as we succeeded with the Soviets in the Cold War by bankrupting them with military expenses, so he theorizes do our enemies purposely make us spend far too much money for our defense. He spoke about trying to stop the money drain. For instance, he saw that we were trucking in ice from Kuwait several hundred miles to Baghdad instead of building ice making facilities in Baghdad. He spoke about literally flying into parts of Iraq with bricks and bricks of tightly wrapped one hundred dollars bills to pay the Iraqi soldiers with funds coming from their oil sales.
On the up side, he said that Prime Minister Malicki has proven to be a surprisingly competent leader. When asked about Afghanistan, he said that the two wars are completely different and doubted that anything we learned in Iraq could be used in Afghanistan which has a completely different history, culture and problems.
Just as a demonstration about how brave Brad is, he gave the talk in front of his mother-in-law Lynn Ann Curry and her husband Larry Curry, with his wife Kimberly standing by.
His new venture, now that he has retired from the State Department, is Jump Start which helps fledgling companies find initial capital.
Stanley A. McChrystal
posted by Jengel199 at 8:40 AM
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