The Culture Warriors

Lisa Verdon, the human terrain team's social scientist, observes a meeting of sheiks.

Fouad Lghzaoui, the team's cultural analyst, speaks with a local leader during a walk along a once bustling Baghdad street.

U.S. military officials are working hard to reassure wary academics that this is no covert intelligence operation, charges that have been fueled by ads placed by contractors on job-search sites (including some that specialize in intelligence careers), which request that HTS applicants have experience in the "intelligence arena." James Greer, a retired U.S. Army colonel and deputy director of the program, notes that the teams' reports are unclassified—and that the military is sensitive to the concerns of its critics. "One of the first things we have to be careful of is that anthropology is a very ethical profession. It's almost like doctors—first do no harm."

Greer adds that the teams are reducing the need for lethal military operations. Brigades in Afghanistan, for example, have reported a drop in "kinetic"—meaning violent—encounters since the HTS teams arrived. Largely as a result, the Army recently budgeted $40 million for the program, with plans to more than quadruple the teams, from the six now in Iraq and Afghanistan to 26 by next summer.

Academics, however, remain unconvinced, and recruiting for the positions has been slow and difficult. The Army had to delay the deployment of HTS teams bound for Iraq, in part because it had trouble finding willing Ph.D.-level anthropologists. Some troops grumble that doctorate or no, the teams are simply hitting the ground too late in the war, offering basic advice that falls short of a revelation for soldiers on their second and third tours. Others, however, stress that the teams are proof that the military is doing its best to adapt. "You have all kinds of people in the universities complaining that we got into a situation we don't understand in Iraq and that we're buffoons for not making any efforts to understand the culture," says Col. William Darley, who edits the journal Military Review. "On the other hand, when we try to do it, critics say, 'You can't do that,' or 'What you are doing is somehow immoral.' "

Priorities. There can be occasional tensions between the teams and the brigades they serve, as well. When Verdon and Lghzaoui meet their boss, Col. Ricky Gibbs, the brigade commander, for the first time, the encounter is a bit uncomfortable. Gibbs has just returned from his two-week home leave, and though he personally requested one of the HTS teams after hearing about them from a friend, he expresses concerns about how they will operate within the chain of command. After the team ticks off a few planned projects, for example, Gibbs has a question: "Who told you to study those things?"

What he most wants to know, he says, is the following: "How do I make [Iraqis] realize that I'm thinking what they're thinking?" The questions keep coming. "How do I approach them in a way that helps? How do I get into the clique? How can I win the information campaign using the way they think?"

Gibbs ends the exchange with a final query: "Are you all going to help?"

"We will try," answers Lghzaoui. " Inshallah [God willing]."

Verdon winces. Gibbs looks at his team. "There is no trying," he says. "We're going to do an American inshallah on this one." That means, he says, "We're going to do it." Later, Verdon digests the encounter, noting the teams have to be sensitive to the can-do American military culture, too.

It was not to be the only hiccup in cultural understanding. Generally about half of the HTS members on any given five-person team are troops who help translate the observations of the social scientists into action for soldiers. Each team member is authorized to receive weapons training and carry a gun. This policy caused a problem during FOB Falcon team's first weeks with the brigade, says Verdon. The soldiers "were wondering what we as civilians were doing carrying rifles," she adds. "It was not the kind of attention we wanted." Verdon and Lghzaoui now wear camouflage fatigues but carry no weapons. Authorizing civilian anthropologists to carry arms, however, has not advanced their case among academics, who argue that the result of any anthropological mission with weapons involved is intimidation, inadvertent though it may be.