Word: neighborhooding
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Today the neighborhood's abandonment rate is closer to 5%; where there used to be just 11 shops, 160 shops are now open on the main street. There hasn't been a major incident against Cook and his men for almost three months. (He lost five men while routing out insurgents and turning the neighborhood around; about a third of his men have been awarded Purple Hearts). Between Cook's area and an adjoining one, the U.S. spent close to $3 million, jumpstarting the local economy by hiring and sourcing locally. Another $4.7 million is budgeted for future projects...
When he is out on patrol, primary schoolchildren dash across the street to greet Cook, running past armed neighborhood guards to proudly show him their report cards. "Hellow meestah Cook!" they shout. "Zien, zien!" Cook says, ("good, good") encouraging them in Arabic. Armed plainclothes gunmen - volunteers Cook helped organize - checked inside cars passing through the crosswalk...
...unit has come to know the neighborhood in a way that would have been unthinkable just after the war, or even into 2004 and 2005. In fact, the U.S. military has never secured Iraq or controlled it so completely as it has today, and never before has their wealth of intelligence and ability to analyze it been better. And yet never before has the military looked and acted less like a fighting force than does today. "The problems that we have to worry about now - making sure the volunteers posted at the girls' high school don't stare...
Cook and his men spend their days haranguing shady contractors, sending requests to government ministries for assistance, dragging community leaders to meetings, finding medicine for checking on home deeds from people who have recently moved in, learning the minutiae of Iraq's complicated ration card system, setting up neighborhood councils, and sometimes just lending...
...neighborhood still has a long way to go. It has just two entrances, only one of which residents feel safe enough driving in and out of. Some residents approach Cook to ask for help, or an application for a small grant. But many deliver cold, hard stares from a distance. And as safe as it is now, soldiers still wouldn't recommend a foreigner walk down the street without a flack jacket and a helmet...