John Kelly Speech Keynote Address Dec 17 2014 Interview 4

we are very the US
military is very very very good at
anything and everything the US
government the president itíd States
tells us to do we we can do anything we
have a we are our culture is one of of a
bias for action of not being not being
tied down by who's really in charge of
the thing I give you a thousand examples
of my time in Iraq
where you know economic development the
SUNY tried this the SUNY part of Iraq
was a place when I went back as a
commander they said look you can't win
down there it's a hotbed of Sunni
radicalism just don't get too many
people killed on bought province we won
and I bought province and when I say we
won we beat we made common cause with
the sheiks we beat down al Qaeda and we
developed the place in a way that no one
could believe in terms of agricultural
production in terms of industry and all
those kind of so I'm a marine and I'm
going up the normal way to get this kind
of assistance to Baghdad you know people
in Baghdad that never traveled outside
of the Green Zone and didn't understand
what was going on on the ground in a
couple of examples I would give you I
grew up in Boston city kid people came
up to me and said we said you know I'm
Bob Provence used to produce more
chickens for obviously all the things
you use chickens for but more chickens
than anywhere else in the in the Middle
East but because of the oil-for-food
program all of that kind of thing went
away because they pumped oil and they
were given food so the chicken that
employed really large numbers of people
and so the chickens and the in the end
of and the sheep and all of this kind of
thing and so I said to Baghdad I really
need people that know agriculture
because there's things here that with
tremendous potential but I want to
kick-start it and you don't have to
waiting two months I get four or five
people from the Department of
Agriculture that didn't know anything
about agriculture they there were
bureaucrats from Washington but there
were no better at chickens than I am and
and chickens to me you get in in a
grocery store so what we did was I just
bypassed it and I went to the best
agricultural school in the world Texas
A&M; University and I said I need someone
that knows again I'm a city kid I need
someone that knows how to bring back
what was once a very vibrant to
agricultural economy
and they sent nine of ten people cost me
$400,000 they came for three and a half
months and I remember the day they
reported out to me there was a woman
that said we had five million sheep in
the in Anbar province and she said every
one of them's got to be replaced and I
went okay I'm thinking five where do I
buy five million sheep and she she said
you must be from Boston in the city
because no no you don't have to buy five
million sheep
what we need is 15,000 Rams and what you
do is you go around and we did this we
went around and when we start a flock of
sheep people that know what Rams look
like I have a general idea how to
identify a ram but say okay you got
three Rams
cut their throats right now and eat him
obviously and we'll give you three new
ramps we bought these Rams from all over
the Middle East and North Africa what we
were doing is was was replacing the the
DNA stock because they're all inbred and
very sickly and all that so my point is
anyways four hundred grand they come in
a guy that knows soil irrigation better
irrigation techniques a million chicks
we bought in started the a million
chicks to start the the chicken
production program I was criticized
repeatedly over getting outside my lane
but the agricultural industry and Amba
province came back and many many
thousands of young men were were
employed gave him something to do and in
life goes on same kind of comments
economic development I had a lot of
reservists work for me accorded all of
my marine reservist and said does anyone
know anything about business development
you know I had 10 to 12 people who were
very very skilled at it so we sent them
down to Kuwait to a today's man bought
them a couple of cheap suits and sent
them down the cutter Amman Jordan
few other places in that part of the
world and the next thing you know I'm
flying businessmen from other parts of
the Persian Gulf Arab businessmen in in
marine aircraft up to unbar province to
have meetings with with Sunni sheiks and
sue in on bar businessmen the kick
started overnight not overnight very
quickly
the economy started to pick up all of
this outside of my lane all of this
outside of the a ID process and I can't
say enough good things about a ID but
all of it because they're bound by this
this kind of you know they have baggage
a book and I'll end with this a really
really good book that you that I'd
recommend to you if you if you're
interested in economic development that
kind of thing
Paul Brinkley was the name of the book
is war front to storefront Paul was a
very very successful businessman hired
by Rumsfeld he's still a good guy
Brinkley I mean and he came out and for
five years was the DoD business
development guy in what he touched got
better severely criticized by the
establishment because what's DoD doing a
nation-building and economic development
and the answer is because you are not
doing it so we we are very very good at
what we do and I would offer that the
idea that the US military if the mission
is business development like it wasn't
on ball province there was more business
development than killing people we hunt
we're not to do that really well but it
was more business development and
sitting down with sheiks and human
rights issues and all of that we're very
very good at that we're not tied by by
the baggage that the federal bureaucracy
are the other bureaucracies are and at
the end of the day we have this bias for
action we want to put points on the
board and we want to we want to win the
game