STEP ONE: YA GOTTA BE SMARTER THAN THE BAD GUYS

Four Arab men posing as journalists were arrested this week when explosives residue was detected on them as they tried to enter the Baghdad headquarters of the U.S.-led administration, a senior U.S. army officer said.

The officer, a top security official in the compound which hosts news conferences given by senior U.S. and Iraqi officials and houses the U.S. consulate, said explosives were found in the men's hotel room after the arrests on Sunday.

They were posing as employees of an international television company and carried fake identification cards and were trying to drive a van into the compound when they were arrested, he said.

"The IDs looked real. But when we called the organization and asked if they were employees, they said they had not heard of them," the army officer, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters.