Empowering citizens Engaging governments Rebuilding communities

As planning for CSP unfolded, the security
situation in Iraq worsened, including the
deadly bombing of the al-Askari Mosque
in Samarra in February 2006. USAID
had to move quickly, and it needed an
experienced implementation partner
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A complete stabilization package
a new voice in the administration, Peter D. Feaver,” a
special adviser to the National Security Council and a
political scientist who had studied and written extensively
on civilian-military relations. The US government
recognized its objectives could not be accomplished
through security interventions alone.
Shortly thereafter, USAID released its Iraq Transition
Strategy Plan (2006–08), which outlined three objectives
in support of the administration’s security-political-economic
delineation. The first of these objectives
called for the “stabilization of strategic cities and the
improvement of local governments’ ability to provide
services” through short- and long-term job creation
programs and through close working association with
provincial councils. “Linking stability with development
will reduce incentives for violence and integrate
key cities into longer term development initiatives,”
the plan stated. Out of this strategy, CSP was born
(box 4).
From the beginning, CSP differed from most international
development programs and particularly from
USAID programs. The scope of work said that: “Rather
than focusing on traditional long-term sustainable
development, CSP is a short-term COIN program”
with a concentration on “employing or engaging mass
numbers of at-risk, unemployed males.” Designed to
be run “in close coordination with the [US] military,
provincial reconstruction teams, and with local civilian
counterparts,” CSP brought into one program the US
government’s most comprehensive postwar strategy
plan to date, as well as the military’s emerging
outlook on civ-mil partnerships for carrying out COIN
strategies.
In January 2007, the president announced the
stabilization plan during an internationally televised
address, detailing how the embedded PRTs would
place development experts inside brigade combat
teams, the “civilian surge” to accompany the military
surge of 20,000 troops. Initially, there was a struggle
within the administration as to which department or
agency would take the lead in civilian-led stabilization
and reconstruction. Should it be housed at the
Pentagon? Implementation cells could be placed
within the combatant command responsible for Iraq,
but concern was expressed over how much flexibility
the civilian workers would have. Should it be housed
at the State Department? At the time, the department
did not have any scalable programmatic capability for
stabilization—the Civilian Response Corps was still a
few years away. But some high-ranking State Department
officials pushed for it, arguing that the department
was already overseeing democracy building and
programs for internally displaced persons, and that
those programs could be transitioned into stabilization
activities.
USAID, without a Cabinet-level voice, lacked the influence
of other departments, but its mission practices
offered an obvious alignment with CSP’s programming
requirements. Not everyone in the administration
agreed, of course. But after prolonged discussion,
administration officials decided to house the program
at USAID. “The reconstruction activities that were put
forward for USAID to implement focused on the areas
where the government believed it could get the best
goodwill from Iraqi citizens, the best places where
we could engage Iraqis in a constructive manner so
they’re not taking up arms,” explained a senior IRD
official.
In the context of government decisionmaking, CSP
was moving forward rapidly, despite the jockeying for
oversight. Momentum for focused stabilization had
been building, but as early planning for CSP unfolded,
the security situation in Iraq worsened. The al-Askari
Mosque bombing in Samarra in February 2006 led to
an estimated 1,300 deaths, ignited ethnic tensions,
and plunged Iraq into a spiral of violence. USAID had
to move quickly, and it needed an implementation
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