Veritas Insights

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Background:  By December 2011, the full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq was to occur.  In Nov 2011, shortly after Thanksgiving, Vice-President Joseph Biden made a surprise visit to Iraq to visit with high-level Iraqi leaders as well as oversee a ceremony thanking U.S. troops for their service.   

Issue:  The visit to Iraq may have been a surprise to the general public, but our team was informed weeks in advance to help the U.S. Secret Service prepare.  The U.S. Secret Service is an incredible organization with an unrivaled expertise in domestic protection.  Overseas protection, however, presented a challenge to them because they do not have the same authorities and powers they possess within the United States.  For example, when the Secret Service is conducting protection stateside, they can close off roads, block intersections, shut down traffic all the while calling in thousands of local cops and agents to guard every door, window and keyhole in the area.  Iraq, however, was a sovereign country that was not going to grant these privileges to them.  Complicating matters further was the situation in Iraq: suicide attacks, mortar attacks as well as a nascent security force whose loyalty and discipline were untested.

Our job was to help the Secret Service provide the best protection possible given the constraints.

Insight:  A powerful bias that organizations tend to have is that they can view other organizations as operating in a manner similar to themselves.  The U.S. Secret Service is a highly disciplined organization with a clear chain of command and rigid hierarchy.  It takes years to work through the ranks and many agents wait 15 years before getting the chance to work on the Presidential Protection Detail.  This was the problem.

Iraqi Security forces did not operate in the same manner.  During our time with the Secret Service, they focused on cultivating the relationship with high-level Iraqi officers.  We would conduct tours and advances with these officers and the rank-and-file security forces would snap to attention when they were present.  But we deduced that this was pageantry.  The real power was held with the local squad leaders.  These lower level officers who were not being courted by the Secret Service had more power to grant us what we wanted than the highest level generals.  Why?  Because for Iraqi security forces, when it came to their top brass, "out of sight, out of mind," was the mantra.  So while the top brass promised that a mere phone call would be enough to sort out any issues, we believed that we needed a more direct, and locally tailored contingency plan. 

While some in Secret Service remained skeptical of our insights, others were open.  We devised a contingency plan in case of a disconnect between the promises of the top Iraqi brass and the realities on the ground.

Strategy:  The most delicate part of our strategy was balancing our need to influence the local officers against the restrictions we had to operate with.  Simply put, our two cultures disagree on where the line between bribery and gift-giving lay.  We needed to offer something that was both valuable enough to be coveted yet worthless enough to not break our U.S. protocols. 

Our team had made an additional counter-intuitive insight during our time in Iraq.  While cigarettes and alcohol were very coveted, there was a massive price mark-up for Western energy drinks (e.g. Redbull).  In fact, we noticed that the price of these energy drinks would often exceed the prices of alcohol and cigarettes (adjusted on a per unit basis).  In some ways, it made sense, the population that enjoyed energy drinks included women and children as well as men.  So demand was much higher and the supply was much more limited.  The nucleus of our plan took shape. 

We had a team member, who was proficient in Arabic, attached to a Secret Service team.  This team member had a stockpile of energy drinks.  Beginning in the early morning on the day of Vice-President Biden's visit, we went around to key checkpoints and engaged our Iraqi security counterparts in conversations with complimentary beverages.  We promised that we would return with more (and we did).  All of sudden, many things that were previously impossible suddenly became very possible.  We got traffic redirection, road closures and a host of other things that increased the overall security of the operation.   

Outcome:  The Vice-President's motorcade encountered no issues during it's time in Baghdad.  Our team was honored with a personal thank you from Vice-President Biden.