Stopping Insurgency One Brick At A Time

Unit revives factory in Shiite town to lure Iraqis away from criminal behavior with work.


NARHWAN, Iraq — Before Lt. Col. Mark Sullivan arrived in this city of 120,000, he had his eye on the map.

On the outskirts of Narhwan a big smoke-belching brick factory, once the economic engine of the region, was sitting idle. Before the start of the war, it employed more than 10,000. In the years that followed, though, it degenerated into a den of extortion. The extremists were shaking down the business owners.

“It was a sanctuary. Weapons and ammunition were stored out there,” Sullivan said.

But Sullivan, commander of the 1st Battalion, 10th Field Artillery Regiment, sensed an opportunity at the onetime employment hub turned weapons storage center.

“We saw it on the map and said we’re going to go after this sucker,” Sullivan said.

Seven months later, the mules are in motion. Conveyors are spitting out the bricks, which are being stacked up by the million. While the violence rages to the west in Sadr City, tensions have eased in Shiite-dominated Narhwan.

The reason is simple: People are too busy going to work every day, he said. “You have to provide an alternative to criminal behavior.”

The factory is once again the largest employer in Mada’in, an area southeast of Baghdad where the 3rd Heavy Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division has been operating since March of 2007.

It's been a success so far. I got the story from the Stars and Stripes, the only paper that will consistently publish stories like this, for obvious reasons.