Happy U.S. Troop Pull-Out Day!

In the event of the US Army withdrawing from urban centres (there will still be 130,000 in the country), the governments in both Iraq proper and the KRG have called... of course... and official holiday! For those places south of Erbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah, yes - this is a good move. Security wise, its good to have people at home with their families... up in the three northern governorates...

The organization I work for has a pretty strict policy on holidays. This came about because some countries have a tendancy to have a lot of them. Often impromptu. Iraq is no different. Because of this, my current organization gives 15 pre-determined days a year that staff can have as holidays. Anything extra is evaluated, but usually not granted.

I was working for another organization previously here in Iraq, and I can see why the 15 day rule is useful. In December of 2008 and 8, because of a combination of pre-determined holidays and impromptu holidays, I think my staff worked a total of 8 days the entire month. A little ridiculous. Between the KRG and the GOI, and many last-minute declared holidays (often the day before - with a phone call at 4pm from the Operations Manager saying - the government says there is a holiday tomorrow so we are not coming to work), which of course you need to give to staff in both areas, actual work can go a little slow.

Now in this case, my current organization has granted the holiday for June 30th. But only for staff in the central regions (Baghdad, Anbar and Babylon) as a security precaution. We don't want people travelling around cities when we do not know what is going to happen. Our staff in Baghdad already has already faced difficulties working over that last two weeks because of all of the insecurities in the central region. We haven't, however, given the holiday to the northern staff. We'll see what morale is like in the office.

As for the pullout (or more appropriate "pullback"). On va voir!

For more on the US troop pull-out:
Washington post: Jubiliation in Iraq on Eve of US Pullback
NYTs: US leaves Iraqi Districts where anger still lingers