Flak and false starts in a war zone

Southern California small-business consultant Phil Borden went to Iraq with high hopes for playing a small part in rebuilding the tattered economy.

The yearlong venture shredded that dream.

Charged with taking over a failed effort by a State Department contractor to create a national model of a profitable small-business development center, Borden expected to use his considerable stateside experience helping entrepreneurs. But the deaths of co-workers, locals and American soldiers -- and the continuing absurdities of trying to do business in a war zone -- took their toll.

"I learned that meaning well and doing well are two different things," said Borden, a Palos Verdes resident, whose role was confirmed for The Times by colleagues in Iraq and at the State Department.

The former historian found some relief in the weekly reports he e-mailed to family and friends documenting the ironies, tragedies and frustrations of his daily life in Baghdad's Red Zone, the area outside the high-security Green Zone.

Those messages were forwarded freely, eventually finding an audience of several hundred, and are now compiled in his new self-published book, "Shaku Maku: On the Ground in Occupied Iraq" (Outskirts Press, Denver).

Shaku maku is Iraqi slang for "How's it going?" The answer, for Borden, turned out to be "not so well."

As he recounts in his book: "I began my year in Baghdad's Red Zone wrapped in a flak jacket, Kevlar under-shorts and hope that I could create a small beachhead for economic sanity in an ocean of madness. . . . Over time, I increasingly came to understand that I had deluded myself."

He's been back for a year. He's taken up his former work as chief executive of the nonprofit Active Capital and as principal of Essergy, a Long Beach consulting firm. At the insistence of his wife, Leslye, he also spent some time putting together his 292-page book.

What was a nice small-business development guy like you doing in a place like Iraq?

A few years ago I had been on a peace mission in Israel and Palestine and thought that an important thing that could be done to facilitate the peace process there was to see if I could create joint ventures of Palestine and Israel women-owned businesses. . . . Ultimately the person I was working with said, "Look, I hear you bitch and moan about all the bad things we've done to Iraq. It's time to put your money where your mouth is." That was a powerful argument with me, because complaining was easy. I talked further with my wife and she agreed: You make an existential decision and you follow through. If you care about something, the caring is in the action, not the statement.