In late '70s with the ghost of Vietnam still influencing the US military strategic thinking, the army placed the research and reference material derived from its experiences in WW2 about military government and civil affairs in the deepest, darkest library shelf it could find with the attached note "Contents non-viewable". The US government, the US military and, especially, the US Army was 'out of the nation building business'. The few experienced servicemen involved in such endeavors would be reluctant to include that on a resume, making it difficult for the MP to recruit them because that skill set, nation building, is exactly what the MP needs in a five year, post war environment.
Fast forward to 2003. In January, two months before the invasion, the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) was created as a caretaker administration once the Iraq government was dissolved with the 2003 invasion. Those dust encased books about US military government and the transition to civil authority of Germany post WW2 sitting on the last shelf were found and opened. Once the military mission was accomplished, the Coalition Provisional Authority was installed. The reconstruction of Iraq began primarily through private contracts. After fourteen months the Iraqi Interim Government was established. As of 2013, the reconstruction of Iraq continued and was judged to be a failure due to corruption and insurgent activities.
In 2000s + the MP has a larger pool to draw from of experienced servicemen involved in military and civil affairs than what was available in the 1970s and 1980s. As written in the 3rd edition of MP there was no regional command structure, C&C was located, exclusively, at Prime Base. In 4th edition, the addition of the regional command structure was added. Now, the teams would coordinate activities through a regional commander who was under the supervision of Prime Base. This layer would be have many personnel that had military or contract experience in the M&CA activities of the Iraq war and reconstruction. IMO, this was implemented as a last resort mission "fail-safe" in case PB (and BuPB) was (again) destroyed. A regional commander (typically, a general or field grade officer with M&CA command experience) would know the wake-up codes of some of the teams (including a few group commanders) within his region to activate. From one regional base and command team the process of rebuilding the US could begin without PB. The overall process would take longer but it could be done.
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