From July 2004 through June 2005, Major Kip Korth served as the US Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division's liaison officer to the 1st Infantry Division and then subsequently to the 42nd Infantry Division. His higher headquarters was Gulf Region North, located in Mosul, but he worked out of Tikrit at Forward Operating Base Danger. He later assumed the position of officer in charge of the regional reconstruction operations center. In this interview, he discusses his work with a wide variety of agencies, including the Department of State, the US Agency for International Development and the Project Contracting Office, in efforts involving over 500 different construction projects. Korth also talks about his work with both local and foreign national laborers and native Iraqi contractors, and reflects on the "direct relation" between construction projects and a lower incidence of attacks against US and coalition forces. In addition, Korth says that he feels more attention and funds should have been focused on building the local Iraqi economy. "Going in and fixing all these little schools across the country is great and it makes people feel good," he said, "but you have to put mom and dad to work. I think we should have focused a lot more on that and I hope they're focusing more on that now."

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