Skip to main contentMaybe you've heard of Mercy Corps, the Portland-based aid agency that, for 24 years, has worked in some of the world's worst places. In Kosovo, Mercy Corps helps dairy farmers sell surplus milk. In Afghanistan, it's building girls' schools.
If you don't know Mercy Corps, some people would probably like you to. People named George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, for instance.
In Iraq, Mercy Corps says, its 104 operatives in the Kurdish north and Shi'ite south are making real progress--mucking out irrigation canals, establishing citizens' councils, cleaning up hospitals. And while the International Red Cross and other groups are slashing their presence in Iraq, Mercy Corps is hanging tough.
So even though the humanitarians headquartered in Southwest Portland and Bush's Lone Rangers in D.C. couldn't be farther apart philosophically, they've found something of a common mission in Iraq. And right now, the president needs the Portland agency a lot more than Mercy Corps needs him.
The administration would love to see tales of good works on Page One, instead of charred Army choppers. Mercy Corps is equally eager to get the word out. Ironically, the nonprofit--which zealously guards its independence from U.S.-led military efforts--had to fight for the right to do just that.
When the federal U.S. Agency for International Development first offered Mercy Corps a $14 million, one-year Iraq contract, it stipulated that U.S. authorities would control the project's media relations. The unprecedented demand for PR control did not sit well.
"We'd never seen that kind of clause, in the nearly 100 U.S. AID contracts we've handled," says Mercy Corps spokeswoman Margaret Larson. "We're not part of anyone's message machine."
The government soon caved, but the dispute echoed a larger dilemma faced by MC and other humanitarian organizations. Mercy Corps took no official position on the Iraq invasion. But there was vigorous internal debate over whether to participate in relief efforts brought on by a war opposed by most of the international community.
Ultimately, Mercy Corps decided to go in. Right now, it seems that gamble is paying off. Staffers say Iraqi attitudes in places like Al-Kut, an isolated and neglected southern city of about 300,000, are very different from the rage beaming out of Baghdad.
"I went out shopping for produce in Kut the other day, and they wouldn't take my money," says Cassandra Nelson, a Mercy Corps spokeswoman who talked with WW via phone from Baghdad. The city's local leaders feel so optimistic, they've adopted the nickname "The City of the Future."
Nelson says the withdrawal of many other humanitarian organizations in the wake of violence has heightened reporters' interest in Mercy Corps. The group's work in southern Iraq has recently been featured on NBC and National Public Radio.
"We're going full-throttle," she says. "Immediately following the war, no one was interested in what we were doing, because there was always a bomb to chase. But now, six months later, something is always getting blown up. The reality is there are some good things going on in this country, and people are interested in that."
The group is emphasizing grassroots organizing and cheap, low-tech projects to stretch that $14 million contract. For example, Mercy Corps Director-at-Large Paul Dudley Hart characterized an $80,000 irrigation repair as the "biggest change in living memory" for rural communities of about 40,000 outside Al-Kut.
"In this world, you can make a world of difference in an eyeblink, for not much money," Hart says. "Sometimes things look so bad that even thinking about stability seems quixotic. But 15 years ago, the middle of Lebanon looked like Dante's Inferno. Now, it's a nice place to sit outside and have a meal.
"My fondest wish is that in seven years or eight years, I'll be sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Baghdad or Al-Kut saying, 'Wow, remember when....'"
If Hart's vision comes to pass, maybe Rummy or Condoleezza will pick up the tab. With Mercy Corps producing some of the only happy news from Iraq, the Bushies owe them one.
WWeek 2015