EXPLODING MAIL

Things not to ship while the temps are so high in Baghdad.

Following a fire in a U.S. military postal facility in Baghdad, postal officials have a message: Please use common sense when shipping to the Operation Iraqi Freedom theater.

With surface temperatures climbing as high as 140 degrees, officials there want loved ones to be cognizant of everyday items that might not travel well in such extremes.

“It should be common sense,” said Army Lt. Col. Frank Smith, Deputy Commander 3rd Personnel Command, or PERSCOM, at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. “Last week it reached 126 degrees here, and that’s what happened to our two pallets at the Baghdad airport.”

Smith and Sgt. Derek Stubbs, an administrative sergeant also with the 3rd PERSCOM, spoke with Stars and Stripes via phone.

What happened was a package that contained common plastic cigarette lighters and batteries ignited, destroying 50 to 75 packages under some netting on the pallets...

Aerosol cans are another high-risk item, Stubbs said.

CENTCOM NEWS RELEASES

August 20, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-38

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ANOTHER MEMBER OF "IRAQI TOP 55" IN COALITION CUSTODY

MACDILL AFB, FL – Taha Yasin Ramadan al-Jizrawi, number 20 on the coalition's list of most wanted government officials, is now under custody of coalition forces. The former Iraqi Vice President was captured by Kurdish forces then turned over to the 101st Airborne Division August 19.

Coalition Forces will continue to work at apprehending former members of the Saddam Hussein regime.

August 20, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-39

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ONE INTERPRETER KILLED, TWO SOLDIERS WOUNDED IN ATTACK

BAGHDAD, Iraq – One U.S. citizen working as a contracted interpreter was killed and two U.S. soldiers were wounded in a small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenade attack in Tikrit on Aug. 20.

The victims were all evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital for treatment.

The interpreter died of wounds received.

The interpreter’s and the soldiers’ names are being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin.

The incident is under investigation.


August 20, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-40

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ONE KILLED, ONE INJURED AFTER CONVOY FIRED UPON

BAGHDAD, Iraq – One 3rd Corps Support Command soldier was killed and another injured in a two-vehicle accident while driving south on the main supply route southeast of the town of Ad Diwaniyah.

The soldiers were driving in a supply convoy of Palletized Loading System (PLS) vehicles when they received small arms fire and struck another vehicle. Both soldiers are attached to the 3rd COSCOM operating out of Kuwait.

Security, medical and recovery assets were dispatched to the scene. One soldier died as a result of the accident. The other soldier was treated and returned to duty.

The soldier’s name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

The incident is under investigation.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 21st. The 102d day of CPT Patti's deployment.

NOT EXACTLY OUR KIND OF ARMY

Budget crunch puts Sweden's military on a 9-to-5 schedule for the rest of the year.

Sweden's armed forces will operate only during office hours for the rest of the year to cut costs, military headquarters said.

(Via The Corner at National Review Online)

PICKING A FIGHT WITH THE WORLD

Headlines and extracts from today's news.

"Two Filipinos were identified as among those slain in the suicide bombing in Baghdad..."

"American killed in bombing was Arab expert on special assignment..."

"A Scottish woman was among the victims of the bomb which devastated the United Nation's base in Baghdad..."

"Canadian killed in Baghdad blast..."

"Foreign Minister Phil Goff confirmed one New Zealand Army officer had been injured in the blast. "

"World condemns Baghdad bombing..."

"Germany Condemns Attack On UN Headquarters In Baghdad"

"World leaders express resolve after attack on United Nations in Baghdad..."

''Acts as odious as this can only prompt indignation and unreserved condemnation,'' French President Jacques Chirac said in a message to Annan."

"Russia... called the attack a ''barbaric act'' that was ''aimed at undermining the already difficult process of postwar stabilization in Iraq.''

"The victims came from around the world including the United States, the Philippines, Egypt, Britain, Brazil and Canada. "

PONDER THIS

Everyone has advice now for the U.S.: bring in U.N. peacekeepers, bring in the French. They're all wrong. There are only two things we need: more Americans out back and more Iraqis out front. President Bush needs to give the U.S. administrator, Paul Bremer III, more resources to get basic services here running and Iraqis in charge as fast as we can. This is not Germany 1945. America is much more radioactive in this region. We don't have infinite time.

Which is also why we need Iraqis out front — fast. They need to be seen to be solving their own problems. They need to be manning the checkpoints because only they know who the good guys and bad guys are, and they need to be increasingly running the show so attacks on Iraq's infrastructure are seen and understood as attacks on Iraqis, not on us.

And, most important, we need them out front because the Iraqi silent majority is our only potential friend in this whole neighborhood. Everyone else wants America to fail. But we have not empowered that Iraqi silent majority enough, and it has been too timid and divided to step forward yet. "The Iraqi people are the only ones in the area who have an interest in your success," said Masrour Barzani, the security chief for the Kurdistan Democratic Party, a real friend of America's. "But you have not allowed that friendship to emerge."

It can only emerge if America gets the basics right — water, jobs and electricity — and lets Iraqis run things faster. "Let [Iraqis] take the credit; let them take the blame," Mr. Barzani said. "We need Iraqis to face their own problems and each other, and right now you're in the way."

IT AIN'T OVER

"We can get through this, because we have you supporting us, we thank you for helping us in such a huge way, morale is so much better," one soldier wrote to Supe.

"For the life of me, I can't understand, why there isn't more attention paid to these boys, you know because there is a war going on, just ask there families," Supe said.

When Supe asks her brother if they should be there, he says 'yes' and the kids they're helping agree.

"He said 'Mia, you should see there faces when they see me coming,' he said they look at me and they say you are God sent and they begin to cry," Supe said.

Read it all here and find out how your letters and packages make a difference.

ANOTHER PHONE CALL

CPT Patti called me in the very early hours of the morning. She called because she needed me to pass some information along to a family member back here.

During the conversation I asked her about the UN Hotel blast yesterday.

She said that shortly after she and I finished speaking yesterday the blast occured. The blast rocked their compound and rattled the windows pretty badly.

No one at her compound was hurt. They estimate the hotel to be about a mile from their compound.

She said that as soon as it happened she went to her lookout position on the roof and saw a large, black mushroom shaped cloud rising above the city.

I ONCE CONSIDERED A CAREER WRITING CHILDREN'S BOOKS

I've changed my mind...I think I'll write news stories for the Muslim press instead.

Because there are some things that even children won't believe.

Saddam Hussein was flown out of Baghdad by a US Air Force transport plane on April 9, an Iraqi Army officer says in a documentary film by Patrick Dillon soon to be made public, according to a website.

In the film, the Iraqi officer explains in detail how he watched as the Iraqi dictator and members of his inner circle were evacuated by USAF Hercules transports, says Bill Dash, a correspondent for Far Shores website.

Pakistani news story here.

THEY JUST WANT YOU DEAD

Story here.

Although Neil Cavuto is mainly a FoxNews business commentator, he described well the world's shock today at the terrorists strikes in Jerusalem and in Baghdad. Can anyone say, Equal Opportunity Terrorism? By striking the United Nations, the terrorists just told the civilized world that they are against civilization as we know it. Cavuto's message appeared on the FoxNews website.

It's horrible enough what happened in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Yet sadly, innocents getting blown up there is an almost familiar, tragic sight on almost any day.

I want to focus on the other tragedy today.

I hope the rest of the world took a look at what happened in Baghdad on Tuesday, because some of their own died today. Good people, trying to do good things in a bad place.

The United Nations, which fought against this war, is now targeted in this war. An organization dedicated to peace is just the latest victim in this hellish testament to inhumanity.

I wonder now what the world makes of terror that knows no boundaries, preferences, governments, or politics. Terror that is indiscriminate, callous, and evil. Terror that targets those who fight it and those who try to ignore it. Today we are all awakened by it.

We're talking about evil here. We are talking about people who don't discriminate between paratroopers and peacekeepers, between those who were finished talking and those who wanted to keep talking, between those who fought a war and those who did everything in their power to avoid a war.

Terrorists don't care, my friends, because terrorists aren't our friends. They're monsters, plain and simple. They'd sooner blow off your head before they allow you to get inside theirs.

They don't care if you're American, British, Israeli, French, Spanish, or Indonesian. They don't care what you are alive. They just want you dead.

You can't reason with monsters any more than you can have a dinner discussion with Hannibal Lector. Unless, you want to end up on the plate.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20th. The 101st day of CPT Patti's deployment.

SHAMEFUL

The U.N. special representative in Iraq died Tuesday in a bomb explosion that ripped through the organization's headquarters in Baghdad, U.N. officials in New York announced.

Sergio Vieira de Mello was among the 17 killed and 100 injured when a truck bomb exploded immediately beneath the window of his office in the Canal Hotel. He was trapped in the rubble.

The bombing continues a recent pattern of attacks on non-military targets in Iraq. Over the weekend, oil, water and electricity lines were attacked by what coalition spokesman called saboteurs. And earlier this month, a car bomb exploded outside the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, leaving 10 people dead.

I don't know who is behind this. But I think it is fair to say that we have moved well beyond the Saddam loyalists that Secretary Rumsfeld refers to as the "dead-enders".

It seems apparent that we now have trained, organized, funded cells operating in Baghdad and other places in Iraq.

What interests me from a strategy standpoint is why attack the UN outpost? Seems to me that up until this point, in Iraq anyway, circumstances had done a fair job of isolating the USA and Britain in the minds of most of the world. The old "divide and conquer" strategy was theirs for the exploiting.

But no more.

Of course, similiar strategic flaws were made with the attacks in Bali and Jakarta. That is, unless we drop the assumption that the USA is the target, and consider for once that all non-muslim infidels are their targets...if only because they are too weak to effectively strike the US meaningfully.

Whatever the driver, perhaps - just perhaps much of the rest of the world will pull the blinders off their eyes to recognize that these miscreants will target us all.

Of course, the liberal so-called elite will attempt to blame America. But the facts don't support it.

Look at the faces of the 9/11 terrorists. Arab.

Osama bin Laden. Arab.

Saddam Hussein. Arab.

And you can take it to the bank that the bombers of the Jordanian Embassy, the Iraqi pipeline, the Baghdad water main and the UN outpost in Baghdad, as well as the bus in Jerusalem today...Arab.

The facts lead to their own conclusions.

REGARDING AL QAEDA CLAIMING CREDIT FOR THE BLACKOUT

Defense Contractor Guy writes

regarding Al Qaeda claiming responsibility for the blackout ... remember the audience - that announcement is aimed at the same folks who believe the US has x-ray specs and air conditioned uniforms.

A good point, I think. And further amplified in this piece.

Claiming credit for what appears to have been the product of a fluke equipment failure in Ohio is a sensible move for al Qaeda. The communiqué is a psyop, aimed at the United States to some extent, but more importantly, at the faithful abroad.

Al Qaeda needs to show that it is still relevant and can mount significant attacks on the Crusaders, and claiming credit for the largest power outage in U.S. history is as good a way to demonstrate puissance as any...

But suppose terrorists had managed to bring down the power grid — what were the effects? It was not a day of terror, alarm, and fear, as al Qaeda claimed. New Yorkers dealt with the outage with a degree of aplomb. Some journalists offered stranded commuters the opportunity to lose their tempers on national TV, but I didn't see anyone seriously complaining. The most critical people seemed to be politicians and newsmen seeking to render blame or push policy agendas. The contrast with the expected chaos was notable...

There were no signs of panic, drivers were taking turns at intersections, and traffic was flowing fairly smoothly. Even had the outage been the achievement of the Abu Hafs al-Misri Brigades (not to digress, but why are these platoon-sized terror subgroups always called "brigades"?), it did not result in anything like the harm they claimed in the announcement.

What it shows us is that the terrorists have failed at their most basic objective, namely to terrorize. This is not a country on a knife-edge of tension, ready to dissolve at the first disruption of daily life. If there is a lesson al Qaeda can draw from this event, it is that they will have to do something a lot more spectacular than even this massive power outage to get the country's attention. 9/11 is a hard act to follow.

WHOO HOO!!!!!!

Finally - a phone call! It has been 12 days since our last phone call - unfortunately the shelf life of a phone call is only about 7 days.

CPT Patti sounded terrific...although as she said they are having "generator issues" today so their air-conditioning is on the fritz. Bad day for that. Says she is sweltering.

She sends her thanks to those who have sent her packages...

Another note to Defense Contractor Guy...the "Gator Library" is now up and running thanks to you and your wife. We owe ya.

CPT Patti said that they continue to improve their living and working conditions. This weekend work is set to begin on an Internet Cafe, Fruit Bar, Ping-Pong, Fussball, Pool Table and Big Screen TV area. Won't be finished for a few weeks, but it is real progress.

She tells me we should be receiving a news letter written by her and her fellow commanders downrange. That will have more news of the quality of life stuff...if any of it is new, I'll let you know.

She says thanks for recently arrived packages from Dave & Deb, Pastor Paul & Sue, Dan & Amy and In-Laws Pat and Jan. Still hasn't got to those thank you cards yet.

She says to say she misses everyone, but her full days (now 5:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. - that is her work schedule) keep her from communicating very much.

OK - I'm good for another week now.

Yee-ha!

REDEFINING THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Excellent analysis by Victor Davis Hanson.

Read it here.

What is a base?...

I think under current practice we could better define an existing base as either a nexus for local anti-American resentment or a means of exacting political or financial concessions...

What is an ally?...

In this context, the current meaning of "ally" too often reads as a state benefiting from American friendship that in turn expresses its thanks by gratuitous expressions of hostility in times of crisis...

What is the United Nations?...

A better definition for the current body is something like the following: an international organization where Western liberal states seek to ingratiate themselves with tyrannies, theocracies, and tribes — appeasement winning accolades of justice, while principles earn slanders of racism, colonialism, and imperialism.

OH YEAH...AND I STARTED THAT EARTHQUAKE IN GREECE

Claims of responsibility ring very hollow.

Is this what Al Qaeda is reduced to these days...claiming credit for stuff that just happens?

I'd say the war on teror is working.

Al Qaida's Abu Hafs Brigades has claimed responsibility for the blackout last week in the Northeast and Midwest United States. A communiqué by the Abu Hafs Brigades made reference to Operation Quick Lightning in the Land of the Tyrant of this Generation."

It was published as "the third communiqué by the "Brigades."...

The new communiqué says that in compliance with the orders of Osama bin Laden to strike at the American economy, the Brigades struck two important electricity supply targets on the East coast, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.

The Brigades say that they cannot reveal how they did it, because they will probably have to use the same method again soon. The communiqué also claimed that the operation was meant as a present for the Iraqi people.

"118, AND IT FEELS COMFORTABLE"

I'm glad they've adapted.

"Right now it's 118, and it feels comfortable," says Lt. Brian Crowley, 33, of Los Angeles. Compared with many days this summer, when troops say the temperatures they've recorded have routinely neared 130 degrees, a 10- or 12-degree drop is welcome.

History has shown that how an army battles nature can be as important as how it battles the enemy. The bitter Russian winter of 1812 helped spell the end of Napoleon's empire.

Now, in central and southern Iraq, the U.S. Army says it is winning a dangerous struggle with brutal summer heat. Training that drills soldiers on the importance of drinking lots of fluids and eating properly has kept casualties low. Of the nearly 150,000 troops in Iraq, two have died in the past month from heat-related illnesses. At least five have become seriously ill.

"Given the numbers of troops and the 120-degrees-plus temperatures, it's a relatively low number," says Maj. Bill Dixon, a physician and chief of medicine at the 28th Combat Support Hospital, a city of tents 30 miles southwest of Baghdad. "People are aware and are serious about prevention."

WHERE THE SABOTAGE COMES FROM

The Anglo-American liberation of Iraq was the most revolutionary occurrence in the Arab/Muslim world since the overthrow of the Ottoman empire.

The potential emergence of a democratic Iraq is a dagger poised at the heart of three very different kinds of neighbouring dictatorships - the Shia Iranian mullahs to the east, the secular nationalists of Syria to the north-west and the Saudi monarchy to the south-west.

So when we look for the sources of the instability in Iraq today, be it in the form of sabotage of a key oil pipeline or the continuing attacks on Allied forces, we need look no further than the surrounding states with most to lose. But they are acting out of fear, not self-confidence. They are scared to death that the Iraqi experiment will work and create an unstoppable momentum for change in their own countries.

NOT EXACTLY "WRAPPED IN SWADDLING CLOTHES AND LYING IN A MANGER"

Bizarre.

Two British soldiers have saved the life of a newborn Iraq girl they found locked in a box full of weapons.

The prematurely-born child was barely two days old and had been abandoned by her mother.

The soldiers had cornered five terror suspects in the southern city of Basra and found the girl while searching their base.

She was not breathing when found in a 3ft-long padlocked metal box among rocket-propelled grenades, AK47s and ammunition.

But Private Damien Kenny, 18, from Wigan, and Private Jonathan Hunt, 21, from Blackpool, revived her with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

I'D LIKE TO SEE IT HAPPEN

The head of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council said on Monday he expected a new constitution to be in place within six months and the council to name a cabinet at the end of next week.

"The constitution might need six months, more or less...We have started receiving draft versions of the constitution and then it will be put to the Iraqi people," council President Ibrahim Jaafari told Reuters in Abu Dhabi emirate.

GOING IT MORE OR LESS ALONE

One perspective on why this is a good idea.

Irrespective of whether we should seek to have Europeans, Pakistanis or Indians dying with or in lieu of Americans, irrespective of whether murderous hard-core Baathists and Sunni fundamentalists would feel less "occupied" and less murderous seeing Turks in their country, and irrespective of whether the economically stressed, anti-war countries of the European Union would actually give meaningful financial aid to Iraq, the idea of a "new coalition" to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq is entirely unwise.

It probably would encourage the worst political and cultural tendencies among Iraqis, even among those who are profoundly pro-Western. It could easily send a signal throughout the Middle East and beyond that the Bush administration doesn't have the stomach to transform Iraq, let alone the region.

In the Muslim Middle East, in the age of bin Ladenism, where the rulers and the ruled are constantly assessing American strength and purpose, multilateralism, when it is so evidently cover for a lack of patience and fortitude, is never a virtue. However long the United States stays in Iraq, the cost in American lives and dollars will likely go up, not down, the more we "internationalize" the occupation.

The men who are killing U.S. soldiers and other foreigners want to drive the United States and other Westerners out of the country. When Washington talks about the need to share the pain, what these men hear is that America wants to run.

Only a successful conclusion to the constitutional process will bless American efforts in Iraq. In the eyes of the Iraqi people, legitimacy springs from there, not from the members of the United Nations or its Security Council.

BANK IN A BACKPACK

“I saw a whole different side to the war and after got to help in the rebuilding efforts,” Furman said Sunday from her parents' home in Quaker Hill.

Furman, a member of the finance corps, is accustomed to the policies and procedures related to cashing soldiers' checks and processing other pertinent financial information, but her role in Baghdad was much different.

For roughly five months she regularly toted $150,000 to $200,000 in cash inside a run-of-the-mill backpack through the streets of Baghdad. Her job was to find and meet with venders the Army was doing business with to purchase anything from ice to air conditioning units to an entire rock quarry that soldiers used to build makeshift helicopter pads.

The 38-year-old communicated often with Iraqi businessmen and shop owners, looking for goods to purchase, and worked with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance to ensure that payments were made to Iraqi ministries so that employees, such as teachers, doctors and police, were paid.

Her most significant transaction came when she had to carry $2.5 million in cash in a footlocker from her office inside one of the Baath party's former houses to the Central Bank of Baghdad.

Furman was escorted on her outings by armed guards — she also carried an M-16 for protection — but she never carried the cash in a locked unit or safe.

“I didn't want to announce that I was carrying up to $200,000 in my backpack. It was safer,” she said.

PUTTING THE TROLLING IN PATROLLING

While many soldiers think of patrolling in terms of tough foot patrols on the city’s streets, this group of combat engineers considers patrolling a blessing.

They could be spending eight hours a day staring off into the distance beneath the blazing rays of the sun, pulling guard duty -- an extremely important, but rarely well-liked, job.

Instead, the 671st, a company that builds multi-purpose bridges for the military, uses their boats to patrol the murky, yet placid waters of the Tigris, where Iraqis can be found relaxing, fishing and swimming.

The unit has been patrolling up and down the Tigris River since early May in their MK-2 boats. The boats are essentially miniature tugboats normally used for erecting bridges, said Dorris.

“We regularly take interpreters with us,” Dorris said. “We get a lot of information from people along the river.”

Soldiers from the unit have apprehended people smuggling illegal items on the river and found unexploded ordnance along the banks, he said.

“One time, we brought out the father of a drowning victim to help him search for his son,” Dorris said.

The unit has also escorted soldiers from other Army units, such as psychological operations soldiers who use the river to spread information to the Iraqi people about curfew and coalition operations.

“We like doing this a lot,” Dorris said. “It’s a lot better than guard duty.”

The soldiers have seen the result of their presence as well, he said. “Every time we’ve helped someone in a particular area of the river, whenever we go back, everyone waves.”

ONE OF OUR OWN, TAKING CARE OF OUR OWN

And a special note to my friend and college roommate, Defense Contractor Guy - you didn't know how on the money you were, did you?

Anyone wondering what else to stuff into those boxes for the troops, this story tells you what they all can use.

A soldier from the Friedberg Judge Advocate General office is on a mission to put books into the hands of soldiers deployed to Iraq.

Spc. Heather Holder, noncommissioned officer in charge of Friedberg’s Trial Defense Service, is contacting major bookseller chains and publishers for donations of books for the troops to read during their down time.

“My fiancée (Sgt. Arthur Ford, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division) is in Iraq, and all he asks for is books, books, books,” Holder said. “I looked at my receipts and realized I’ve been spending up to $200 a month on books to send to him and for him to pass out to other soldiers.”

In all, Holder estimates she has sent about 75 books since the unit deployed to Iraq in May.

Yet, the requests for books haven’t let up.

To better meet the needs of the 1st Brigade soldiers, Holder last week began contacting major book chains and publishers for donations of new books.

She has secured about 25 books from a Borders Books in Syracuse, N.Y., where Holder will be on leave beginning in September. She contacted Penguin publishers, Amazon.com, Borders and Barnes & Noble by e-mail last week and has yet to receive responses.

While she is on leave, she plans to contact those companies and more publishing houses by telephone or in person.

“I figure if I contact them in that way, I’ll get more timely responses,” she said.

With hopes of raising 200 or more books for the brigade, Holder said she is also accepting donations from libraries and military families.

Although she is accepting hard or soft cover books, Holder said that paperbacks are much easier for the soldiers to carry around with them.

RAMEN NOODLES - ITS NOT JUST FOR STARVING COLLEGE STUDENTS ANY MORE

The last time I spoke with CPT Patti I wanted to know if the dining facilities were serving hot meals.

I asked her "So, what are you eating these days?"

She said, "The packages of Ramen you send me."

Yes, she gets to the dining facility, but I guess her upbringing and heritage make the Asian noodles a taste of home for her - and a priority.

However, I haven't found any such as this story describes - the kimchee flavored ramen (ramyun).

So, if you are in my family of friends and relatives, please look around to see if you can find kimchee flavored ramyun...the brand cited here is "Shin Ramyun" but I'm sure any brand will do...as long as the flavor is kimchee (we can get beef, shrimp, chicken and "oriental" flavored ramen at the commissary). You might need to check an Asian specialty store.

CPT Patti will love you for it.

Of course, CPT Patti loves you anyway. Its just the way she is.

You’d probably be hard pressed to get kimchee-flavored noodles on the streets of Baghdad these days.

Unless your caring mother is sending them from South Korea.

Over the last few months, Meacha Sullivan has sent several cases of the spicy hot noodles to her son, 1st Lt. Patrick Sullivan. The 26-year-old officer, who has been in the Army about three years, is stationed somewhere in Baghdad with the 596th Signal Company, his mother said.

Sullivan’s pasta pipeline started with a few packages tucked in a care package for Patrick — but the noodles caught on. Other soldiers in his unit began slurping them despite Iraq’s searing heat. The attraction may be in the meal’s simplicity: Only hot water and a few minutes waiting are required and the noodles are ready to eat.

ITS QUIET BACK HERE...WHERE THE TROOPS USED TO BE

It’s too bad there are no tumbleweeds in Germany.

There are days when tumbleweeds blowing across the empty streets of H.D. Smith Barracks would look just about right, now that everyone has gone.

Before the 1st Armored Division went off to war, this was bustling small-town America. And like every town in America, it has a barbershop. Used to be, troops would have to park at the top of the hill near the Community Bank and walk down to Salvatore Mudano’s shop on Texas Avenue. The barbershop and the beauty salon next door stayed pretty busy before the war.

Now, Mudano is Baumholder’s Maytag repairman.

CENTCOM NEWS RELEASE

August 18, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-37

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SOLDIER KILLED BY EXPLOSIVE DEVICE

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A 1st Armored Division soldier was killed by an explosive device on August 18.

The incident took place in the Karadah District at 2p.m. The soldier was medically evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 3:15 p.m.

The soldier’s name is being withheld pending notification of his next of kin.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 19th. The 100th day of CPT Patti's deployment.

Triple digits now. Just like the temperatures in Baghdad.

AND ANOTHER VOICE FROM IRAQ

His website is here.

I was speaking with a restaurant owner today who had come in to give us some information. I was asking him about his business given the nature of things right now. He answered by saying that business is really tough, especially without electricity, but any kind of business is better than life with Saddam. He invited us over to dine whenever we get a chance.

A mother and her daughter who had both found work in the new government, invited us to spend some time at their farm on the outskirts of Baghdad, to enjoy some real home cooking and a ride on their boat on the Tigris River.

Dad after day, we continue to meet with people who for one reason or another want to come in to meet with us, to share information they have regarding things going on out in the city. Many of the people are confused about what to expect from us, hoping in many cases that their information will be worth a job or some reward in return...

At times I wonder if I will be able to remain caring, concerned, empathetic and compassionate as I continue to deal with my fair share of liars, ungrateful and needy people, takers, dependent individuals, and overall people who feel we owe them something.

I feel at times that I am in some kind of a parent child relationship trying to get them to step up to the plate, to be responsible, to take advantage of things, and to take some initiative.

But yet at all times remembering where these people have been and what kind of environment they have grown up in for the last 35 years. Oh what a toll Saddam's regime has taken on its people.

The real test is whether or not I will continue to do this with all my heart no matter what the people say or do. For the most part the people here are very appreciative of our efforts on their behalf to free them from the chains of bondage. I feel it and see it everywhere I go, kind simple people grateful for our presence.

Who am I to judge anyway, maybe I really don't know what they are thinking or feeling. All I really care about is that we are here making a difference. We, in our own little way, are here in the middle of a bad situation trying, in the only way we know how, to make things better.

"THE ARAB CONDITION"

One Arab speaks clearly.

Until now, Arabs have adhered to behavior based on domination and use of the power game. Each Arab country is ruled either by a tribe, family or sect, or by a group of families from a certain area. Maintaining such domination requires employing power and sometimes violence, as well as much corruption, since maintaining power demands a distribution of the spoils. Such methods weaken the state and its institutions.

This model can succeed in the short term, but fails in the long term because it is based on an old form of fanaticism and on sowing division among others and sometimes destroying them. To change the ruling methods in the Arab world, what is needed is a national model that goes beyond fanaticism and is based on sound relations between all the components of a country.

A second matter involves rights. No country must be without rights for everyone and there can be no overcoming family domination, tribalism and sectarianism without asserting the equality of all people under the law. The reality in the Arab world is different: Members of the opposition do not enjoy rights simply because they are opponents; a sect which does not rule is often deprived of its rights, while the ruler or those related or close to him are above the law.

Rights in the Arab world are given to those with whom those in power agree or to those who are part of a given sect, a tribe or family.

Yet throughout the world, rights have been developed mainly to protect the weak and those who disagree with decision-makers or the majority. Laws must be developed in Iraq, especially since the country is in the process of writing a constitution and reorganizing civil relations.

A third issue in Iraq is the future of elections. Arab countries have generally organized their affairs without elections, except when arranging polls that are a masquerade of democracy, and where candidates receive 99 percent of votes.

Holding democratic elections in Iraq in accordance with modern laws for both political parties and the media will be very important in determining Iraq’s future. But the most important thing is presenting a new model for elections in the Arab world, different from the traditional model that lacks freedom.

THE IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL TOURS THE MIDDLE EAST

Let's see how the Arab League responds now.

"Our priority is to restore security, fill the political gap and meet the needs of the country and people. In this regard we insist on the Iraqisation of security... but we will not be like the buried regime of Saddam Hussain, who had built up formidable security organs just to protect himself and intimidate the people," he said.

"On the contrary, our concern is to protect Iraqis and preserve their dignity. We hope to build a police force of 70,000 and reinforce our border guards. We do not mind that we get weapons and other types of support from this or that country, but we must stick to the Iraqisation of our security… we must not compromise on this issue."

Hey, we're behind you on that issue, my friend.

WHAT THE PAPERS DON'T TELL YOU

Excerpt from a letter from Baghdad.

The news that doesn't get reported in the main papers of media organizations is all the good that is going on over here. For the first time in decades, public executions, the torture of children in front of their parents, and the killing of people who might disagree with the Iraqi government are no longer taking place. The rape of school girls as young as thirteen are no longer conducted in the son's palace and the oil for food program is actually going for food for the population, rather then the palaces for a select few. I can tell you from being in one of Sadism's reported 70 palaces, (seventeen just in Baghdad) that the amount of money spent just in marble for the floors would have fed and clothed hundreds if not thousands.

For the first time in decades as well, clean drinking water is being supplied to the larger cities in the south and the electricity and power grid left largely undamaged by coalition bombs but neglected by the Iraqi government is starting up again and supplying power to areas that have not had any in years.

Medical supplies, food aid, employment, free press, representative government and schools opening back up are things that are going on over here but for what ever the reason those very good things are under-reported in Western news papers. I guess, "Thousands getting clean drinking water," which happens to be a frequent occurrence, doesn't sell as many newspapers as "soldier being killed?" which is a much less frequent happening.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana, 41, was videotaping outside the prison hours after the attack when U.S. soldiers shot him. He was the 17th news organization employee to be killed since the war began.

The videotape in Dana's camera showed two U.S. tanks coming toward him. Shots were fired, apparently from the tanks, and Dana fell to the ground. His body was taken away by a U.S. helicopter.

''We saw a tank 50 meters away, I heard six shots and Mazen fell to the ground,'' Dana's driver Munzer Abbas said.

One of the soldiers started shouting at us, but when he knew we were journalists, he softened. One of the soldiers told us they thought Mazen carrying a rocket-propelled grenade.''

''There were many journalists around. They knew we were journalists. This was not an accident,'' Abbas said.

A U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity that American soldiers saw Dana from a distance and mistook him for an Iraqi guerrilla, so they opened fire. When the soldiers came closer, they realized Dana was a journalist, the official said.

''This is clearly another tragic incident, it is extremely regrettable,'' Central Command spokesman Sgt. Maj. Lewis Matson said.

Tragic, indeed. But also the natural result of troops left standing in the line of fire for months.

Watch for the zeal and anger with which the press reports this, the death of one of their own.

And compare that with how they report the death of soldiers. "Two more soldiers died in Baghdad today", as if noting the arrival of robins in the spring.

And some will say it was deliberate...which of course, it wasn't.

"A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE"

As if they have some. Sheesh.

A new group of resistance fighters, the Iraqi National Islamic Resistance Movement, said in a video aired on the Al-Jazeera television network that they would fight the occupying troops even if the US-led coalition helped Iraq recover from war.

“This resistance is not a reaction to the American provocations against the Iraqi people or to the shortage of services, as some analysts believe ... but to kick out the occupiers as a matter of principle,” a man read from a statement.

He sat with several other men holding grenade launchers and Kalashnikov automatic rifles. All had their faces covered with chequered headscarves.

And of course Al Jazeera, the all terrorist network, helps these cretins get their message out.

A FORCE TOO SMALL

Sobering forecasts for the US forces.

As the issue simmers inside the Pentagon, a rising chorus outside — of auditors, defense analysts and advocates for military families — suggest the administration already is late in pressing Congress for more people, given the dangerous and daunting contingencies U.S. troops now face.

A new General Accounting Office report (03-670) looks at the strain on U.S. forces just from new domestic missions since 9/11, and criticizes Defense officials for delaying force structure changes to address homeland security needs until the next Quadrennial Defense Review in 2005...

Meanwhile, the pace of operations for units involved in homeland defense is high enough that thousands of military personnel are exceeding personnel tempo ceilings set by Congress to protect troop morale. As a result, GAO warned, they face “future personnel retention problems.”

Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, studied the troop rotation plan for Iraq, which would maintain current force levels using replacement brigades that will serve there for up to a year. Despite that hardship, reminiscent of combat tours in Vietnam, O’Hanlon said the Army’s rotation base could be exhausted by late 2004.

“That means we will have to take the unthinkable step of sending back to Iraq people who returned from there a year before,” said O’Hanlon. “Many American soldiers, as dedicated as they are, will choose not to re-enlist rather than accept such an unpalatable — and frankly, unfair — demand upon them and their families.”

RIGHT NEXT DOOR

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. teams all over Iraq are turning up arms caches, but rarely does a unit find a huge stash of dangerous weapons so close to home that the devices could have killed them and their buddies as they slept in their cots.

But that’s exactly what the “Hunter” platoon did Thursday. Acting on a tip from an informer, the platoon found a major weapons stash right outside its perimeter.

Col. Rob Baker, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, said Friday that the Hunters found 123 pounds of C-4 explosive, 47 rocket-propelled grenades, seven grenade launchers, 3,000 rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition, machine guns, AK-47s and 20 pounds of gunpowder — all neatly wrapped and recently stored in holes dug in a palm grove outside one of Baker’s forward operating bases.

“Basically, the guys that found this saved lives,” said Sgt. 1st Class Donald Applegarth, the 2nd Brigade’s fire support noncommissioned officer.

Thousands of arms caches are in Iraq, so many that soldiers say “the entire country is one big armory.”

In Baghdad alone, at least 145 major weapons stashes are left to be emptied by the U.S. military, down from 900 that were known to exist when the U.S. military first came into Iraq, according to Brig. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division.

CENTCOM NEWS RELEASE

August 17, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-36

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

REPORTER KILLED NEAR ABU GHYRIAB PRISON

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Coalition forces engaged an individual in the vicinity of the Abu Ghyriab prison Aug 17. The individual was later identified as a reporter.

The individual was evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital and was
pronounced dead on arrival.

The individual's name and organization are being withheld pending the
notification of next of kin.

The incident is currently under investigation.

MONDAY, AUGUST 18th. The 99th day of CPT Patti's Deployment.

Keeping my eyes on the road, I see you.
Keeping my hands on the wheel, I hold you
99 miles from L.A.
I kiss you, I miss you, please be there

(A. Hammond/H. David)

HOT

I've been in the region a month and I'm still trying to deal with, even comprehend, life in what simply must be one of the hottest places on earth.

Here's what it's like:

A can of Coke blew up in the tent I was sleeping in. Nothing unusual about that when it tops 130 degrees every day -- in the shade -- and there's not an air conditioner in sight...

I lucked out and was invited into an air-conditioned office downtown to relax for a few minutes that day. It was the first real air conditioning I'd felt in more than two weeks, and it was glorious for about 10 minutes.

Then I had to get back outside, into the heat. I couldn't stand the cold. I was shivering. The thermometer said it was 78 degrees in the room. A young American soldier returned from a week of emergency leave in Illinois and talked about home, where the temperature was in the upper 80s.

"I had to wear a jacket," she said. "I froze. I couldn't get used to 80- or 90-degree weather there."

Others repeated similar stories.

Good Lord, I thought. My body is actually adjusting to this. My insides expect to be cooked every day.

Soldiers tell stories of dizziness and of passing out face-down into their baked beans in the dining hall.

Medics at one unit report treating a dozen cases of kidney stones a day. It's because of dehydration.

THE TRUTH ABOUT "ARAB BROTHERHOOD" ON THE STREETS OF IRAQ

But here's what is new and will have a big impact on inter-Arab politics, if Iraq can be rebuilt: Many Iraqis today express real resentment for the other Arab regimes, and even toward the Palestinians, for how they let themselves be bought off by Saddam. They feel that Saddam used the Iraqi people's oil wealth to buy popularity for himself in the Arab street — by giving Palestinians and other Arab students scholarships and nice apartments in Baghdad, and by paying off all sorts of Arab nationalist writers and newspapers.

And then these same Arab intellectuals and media gave Saddam a free pass to torture, repress and starve his own people. In other words, "Arabism," in the minds of many Iraqis, is the cloak that Saddam hid behind to imprison them for 35 years, and now that they can say that out loud, they are saying it.

You'd never know this from watching Arab satellite television like Al Jazeera. Because although these stations have 21st-century graphics, they're still dominated by 1950's Nasserite political correctness — which insists that dignity comes from how you resist the foreigner, even if he's come as a liberator, not by what you build yourself.

But the truth will come out. "Iraq is going to be the Arab libido," a Lebanese aid worker in Baghdad said to me. "You know, when you have those naughty dreams that you can't tell anyone about and then suddenly you're on the couch talking about them — that's going to be Iraq." It's going to be where all the taboos that are not supposed to be spoken, get spoken. Indeed, they already are.

Hassan Fattah is a young Iraqi-American journalist who has returned to Baghdad to start a terrific newspaper called Iraq Today (www.iraq-today.com). Before the fall of Baghdad, though, he worked as a reporter in the West Bank. "I sympathize with the Palestinian cause," he said, "but after the fall of Baghdad, when I told Palestinians that I was an Iraqi, they would say to me, `You sold us out. You sold Iraq for nothing.' I was called a traitor. The average Palestinian wanted to see us fight — to resist — America, and the American `occupation,' because that is what they understood."

Of course, Iraqis want to run their own government as soon as possible, said Mr. Fattah — but not in order to join the old Arab nationalist parade, but rather to focus on themselves. "Iraqis know Saddam was a fake," he explained. "His Arabism came at their expense. For Iraqis it was not Arabism, it was torture and subjugation. [Now] there is this feeling that the Arab world has lashed out at us because we did not `resist' the Americans. It was because Iraqis have learned the lessons of phony Arabism — that Saddam could send $35,000 to the families of [Palestinian] suicide bombers, while leaving his own people starving and living on two dollars a day.

"That's why there is a dramatic gulf now between Iraqis and a lot of other Arabs. Young people here want to move on. In 10 years, this will be a very different place. If I can be a part of it, it will be like Hong Kong or Korea — but with an Iraqi face."

Read the whole story here. It is a great piece.

HOORAY

The US army said on Saturday it had found a weapons cache with thousands of rounds of ammunition near the flashpoint Iraqi town of Ramadi, 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Baghdad.
Soldiers from the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment "found a weapons cache with thousands of rounds of ammunition" eight kilometers (five miles) east of Ramadi on Wednesday, a statement said.

The unit was on a reconnaissance mission when it found the cache.

"The unit found a 120mm mortar round near the road during its mission. They subsequently found another 120mm round, prompting the troop to conduct a more intense search," it said.

US forces regularly come under attack in the Ramadi area, which is considered a stronghold of sympathizers of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime.

WHY?

Six Iraqis have been killed and 59 others injured in a mortar attack on Baghdad prison.

The US military said three mortar rounds hit the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.

A spokesman said: "Three mortar rounds impacted the scene. Three prisoners died on impact and three others died in hospital."

SABOTAGE

Not helpful.

BAGHDAD, Aug. 17 — A major water pipeline in northern Baghdad was breached on Sunday, flooding nearby streets, and residents said they heard a blast early in the morning and saw a car speeding from the scene.

Officials said it would take at least eight hours to repair the pipeline and that the water supply to areas of northern Baghdad had been cut off.

Local residents said they had been woken by a loud blast, and that the pipeline appeared to have been attacked by explosives.

The efforts of the U.S.-led administration to rebuild the country's decrepit oil industry and restore basic services have been dogged by sabotage.

The newly reopened oil export pipeline from northern Iraq to Turkey has been shut down after a fire that officials blamed on a bomb attack.

Thamir Ghadban, Iraq's U.S.-appointed de facto oil minister, said on Saturday it would be several days before the oil pipeline to Turkey would be operational again.

SADDAM'S THIRD SON?

The rumors are everywhere...but then, so are the rumors that the GIs sunglasses can see through clothes.

In a country where the regime obsessively controlled information for 35 years and contact with the outside world was tightly limited, rumor flourished as a popular, if dangerous, pastime. When the regime collapsed and at last people could pass on rumors without fear of being arrested or killed, the pastime blossomed into a full-scale national sport.

Every day absurd stories pass from mouth to ear and appear in the dozens of unreliable new newspapers: The Jews are buying up Baghdad; the American soldiers are all foreign mercenaries; a leading pro-American Iraqi politician blew up the Jordanian Embassy this month. But amid the nonsense, the Ali rumor lingers with a tenacity that is both uncommon and potentially destabilizing.

Even in the West, Ali's existence has been widely reported as fact.

Now Hussein's "hopes rest on Ali, the precocious son of Samira Shahbandar, his second wife," Britain's Sunday Telegraph declared after the killing of Uday and Qusay. The two were from Hussein's first marriage.

Ali "is believed to be in Switzerland," The Washington Post reported late last month in a story that also appeared in Newsday.

"And by the way, Saddam has another son with Samira, a young man by the name of Ali, who again, is out there, and nobody knows where he is, either," respected Iraq commentator Kenneth Pollack said on CNN on Aug. 1.

The Associated Press, Britain's Sunday Times and several authoritative books on Iraq and Hussein have reported Ali's existence as fact.

Other news organizations, some highly reputed, some less so, have offered varied details. One said Hussein's remaining son was called Seif and was 20, not 16. Others had Ali in training to run his father's security services or managing a sports club. Several recent stories have him hiding out with his father in Iraq as the American forces search for the former president.

All, or none, may be true. Time magazine, for example, recently reported that a former valet and a former secretary of Hussein both deny that Ali exists.

On the streets and in the homes and offices of Baghdad, there is only confusion and contradiction.

MY NEIGHBOR

Steve lives in the apartment above mine...or to be more accurate, his wife Amy lives there. Steve, like CPT Patti, is in Baghdad.

So is his brother.

"As the 1st Armored Division snaked across Iraq, Sam's humvee was rammed by a five-ton truck (from the same division)," Barbara Winslow wrote in a letter to the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal. As Sam and his crew scrambled to fix the humvee, Winslow said, an M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier pulled up to the rescue.

"Sam could see it was from the 16th Engineers," her letter went on. "Stepping around the front, he called up to the soldier in the hatch:

"Do you know Lt. Winslow?"

"The soldier looked down at him and said: 'Sam?'"

Help was already on the way, and the brothers snatched just 10 minutes together before the charge to Baghdad swept them apart again. They have not met since.

ANOTHER REASON SHE CAN'T COME HOME SOON ENOUGH

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Army Spc. Christiansen Cory was talking with another soldier when he felt something smack his forearm.

“We were standing around and heard a pssssst,” he said. “It felt just like a big rock had been thrown at me.”

But when Cory looked down, he discovered it wasn’t a rock that hit him. At his feet was a bullet from a Kalashnikov rifle. It was still warm.

The round likely came from an Iraqi who fired it into the air in celebration of a wedding, the birth of a child, or, for nothing in particular.

Every day, sometimes several times an hour, an Iraqi somewhere in the capital is shooting his rifle into the sky because he is happy about something. It is Iraqis’ version of a party noisemaker.

The only problem is, what goes up must come down. And sometimes the bullets they fire into the air fall and hit people.

Cory, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, was lucky. The bullet left only a welt that disappeared in a few days.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17th. The 98th day of CPT Patii's deployment.

READ ABOUT KATIE

The apple of one man's eye goes to Iraq.

Their mission faced early turbulence. During a stop in the Azores Islands in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, Katie mysteriously vanished. A navigator arriving on another plane found Katie in a hangar, folded and defaced with vulgar graffiti.

"Not a very auspicious beginning," Arnold conceded.

Cleaned up and straightened out, Katie made it to a number of countries in the Persian Gulf, where she was the centerpiece of hundreds of photographs. Wearing her Air Devil's Inn hat, she was perched on a dismembered tank turret, in the cockpit of a wrecked plane and in the hold of the C-130. She eventually tagged along on more than 20 combat missions, qualifying her for a ribbon, Williams said.

Among the photographs is one showing the beaming blonde model holding two cardboard beers in the doorway of an Iraqi airport, just below an image of Saddam Hussein that had been obscured by a circle and slash.

The cardboard cutout was signed by dozens of soldiers from around the world, including a group of Lithuanian troops, who wrote a paragraph along Katie's midriff.

"I have no idea what it says," Williams said.

TRUE

For moms, dads, wives and husbands waiting, it's always scary and nothing returns to normal until their loved one is safe at home.

"The war is not over," Linda King, of Lower Salem, Fivecoait's mother, said."We still have moms and sons still apart."

While the rest of the nation deals with the biggest power blackout in U.S. history, a sluggish economy, West Nile virus, school openings, gas prices and a runaway computer worm, moms, like King, wait for sons and daughters to return from Iraq.

Remember Iraq?

It's been more than 100 days since President Bush declared an end to major combat in the Iraq war.

Communication is still difficult. Letters, a brief phone call, e-mail if they ever get a chance, are infrequent at best.

"When it really hit me is when I received a letter from Flint. We were having a garage sale. Somebody was mowing his lawn, others were playing in a local softball game," King said. "Many of our sons are being attacked every night. You feel guilty you are doing anything. They are fighting so we can do this."

Amid the daily distractions, families of American soldiers still serving in Iraq would simply like people not to forget.

UN RECOGNITION

Except Syria. Sand weasels that they are.

The UN Security Council has approved a resolution welcoming the emergence of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. Some Security Council members expressed regret that the resolution did not establish a timeline for ending the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. But a majority of members said the Governing Council marked a move in the right direction, toward restoring Iraqi sovereignty. The resolution also established a new UN mission in Iraq that is expected to gain a larger political role and potentially broaden contributions to Iraq's reconstruction.

United Nations, 15 August 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Iraq's month-old Governing Council has received a vote of confidence from the United Nations Security Council to help carry forward efforts toward building a sovereign government in Iraq.

Security Council Resolution 1500, which passed 14-0 yesterday, with one abstention, stopped short of recognizing the Governing Council as the legitimate representative of Iraq.

SOLDIERS PRACTICE BAGHDAD SKILLS

1st Infantry Division soldiers at Fort Riley train for their year-long mission.

Somehow it makes me feel a bit better to read about soldiers training to replace the soldiers there now.

Soldiers from a 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery platoon practiced Friday morning under 1st Division Road. As officers and reporters looked down from the overpass, a six-vehicle convoy crept around a curve. It stopped well short of the overpass, and soldiers jumped from their vehicles to look for anyone who might lie in ambush.

Minivans, cars and gravel trucks kept rumbling along the overpass. Trainers didn't stop them, because the soldiers will have to watch out for enemies amid the bustle of civilian life when they reach Iraq.

The soldiers quickly noticed Pvt. Matthew Witherspoon, who was loitering on the overpass. Witherspoon, dressed in a sweat suit, was playing the part of an Iraqi guerrilla. For all the platoon knew, he was simply a civilian.

"Remove your hands from your pockets," a soldier shouted as his colleagues trained rifles on Witherspoon from a distance.

"Huh?" Witherspoon replied, and the soldier repeated the command.

In an instant, Witherspoon pulled his hand free and hurled a dummy grenade. The soldiers, their rifles loaded with blanks, answered with a stream of gunfire until Witherspoon fell.

But the soldiers still couldn't assume they were safe. They moved slowly over and under the road with their rifles pointed in every direction until the convoy passed safely, 15 minutes after it had first stopped. Another soldier playing an enemy was hidden in nearby trees, but he never came out.

"They did everything right, so he ran away," Maj. Marty Leners said.

TURN ABOUT IS FAIR PLAY?

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A power generator hummed in the corner of a popular Baghdad menswear shop where Leith Tamimi sat smirking Friday as he listened to news of the massive electrical blackout that plagued the northeastern United States for the second day.

"It's not in Iraqi nature to be happy when someone is suffering, but I thank God for allowing them to see how we live," Tamimi said. "I saw Americans on TV and they were enraged. If they were enraged after two days without power, how do they think we feel after four months?"

Iraqis, who have endured widespread power outages since the U.S.-led war ended in April, expressed little sympathy for the Americans who got a dose of life without lights or air conditioning -- or water, for some -- when a major electricity grid shut down Thursday afternoon.

Baghdad residents gloated over stories of New Yorkers stuck in subways and some seemed disappointed that power was restored Friday in large swaths of the affected area. Many Iraqis said they believed the blackout was a gift from God to show Americans the hardships of life without electricity and, they hoped, to speed up coalition efforts to bring electricity back to Iraq.

"Imagine how we've been waiting here for electricity," said Talib Alrubaiyi, a 54-year-old English teacher. "I don't want to hear about Americans complaining over two little days. Their power is back, but how long will we wait?"

Just baffles me...how quickly people forget. For nearly 30 years they may have had electricity at their disposal, but they couldn't use it to watch anything on TV except shows about Saddam, couldn't use it to power the internet or satellite dishes because those were forbidden by the Butcher of Baghdad.

100 DAYS OF PROGRESS

Working closely with Iraqis, the international Coalition Provisional Authority is focused on security, economic rebirth, strengthening basic services and the establishment of an independent, democratic government.

Stability is enhanced by the fact that nearly 200,000 former Iraqi soldiers and officers have been paid their monthly stipends. The economy is strengthened by the fact that banks are opening throughout the country and a new currency is being urgently prepared.

Step by step, Iraqis' lives are improving as transportation is restarted, university students finish their exams for the year, food distribution systems continue working and more than 150 newspapers compete in a new marketplace of ideas.

Cultural life is reawakening, too. Iraqi athletes, including the famous soccer players, are playing joyfully, without fear of torture. The Iraqi Olympic Committee, previously the bastion of Uday Hussein's brutality, is reconstituted with free Iraqis.

Baghdad's symphony and theaters are reopening. The international community is focused on rehabilitating the marshlands in southern Iraq, where the ancient civilization of Marsh Arabs was almost destroyed by former president Saddam Hussein. And thousands of treasures from Iraq's National Museum have been recovered.

BIDDING WAR

So far, it seems to be working.

Although Iraqis who are seen collaborating with coalition forces are risking their lives, many are taking the chance if there is a payout.

For example, units are offering $100 for information on the location of a homemade explosive device. Attackers have planted bombs on the sides of roads and in the median, using remote detonators to set them off as American military convoys pass.

Someone who comes in with information on someone who has a large stock of weapons will get $200. Information leading to the capture of a person who planned to attack coalition forces will be awarded $500. That is more than what most Iraqis make in an entire year.

Of course, a tip that leads U.S. forces to Saddam will bring in a cool $25 million. The U.S. government has already paid the man who tipped coalition forces to the whereabouts of Saddam’s sons Odai and Qusai, who were killed by U.S. forces in a gunbattle July 22 in Mosul.

Military intelligence officers suspect that foreigners are in Iraq paying Iraqis anywhere from $50 to $500 to kill coalition forces. By offering cash for information, commanders are hoping to put those financing the attacks out of business. Essentially, they want to outbid the terrorists who are recruiting locals.

“We’re trying to counter that with the rewards for info,” Elsen said.

Money isn’t the only incentive to get Iraqis to cooperate.

A few soldiers have also found creative ways to get Iraqis to turn over weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. Some troops have traded pistols and pinups of near-naked American models to get weapons.

CENTCOM NEWS RELEASE

August 16, 2003
Release Number: 03-08-35

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FORMER REGIME LOYALIST DETAINED
Soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division detained Said Ali Al Karim, a cleric in Ba’qubah Aug 11, pending charges of distributing materials to incite violence against Coalition forces, funding attacks against Coalition forces, and possession of illegal weapons.

Fourth Infantry Division soldiers conducted a raid on his home August 10. The Division conducted a previous raid on his home July 3. As a result of the information found during the second raid, Said Ali Al Karim was taken into custody.

Documents asking the Iraqi people to fight against U.S. forces and one letter supporting the September 11th attacks against the United States were retrieved from Said Ali Al Karim’s home. Additional documents found were checks to other suspected former regime loyalists, as well as a one billion Iraqi Dinar stock receipt from Saddam’s bank issued to an individual in the former regime.

In April 2003 he issued a Fatwa to wage a holy war against U.S. Forces. Karim is also suspected of placing a 50 million Iraqi Dinar bounty on a U.S. commander. Weapons seized during the raids included AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenade equipment.

Said Ali Al Karim, known as “The Prophet,” is a former regime loyalist leader, a member of the former Ba’athist party and a counselor to Saddam Hussein.

Oh...and a real bastard too.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 16th. The 97th day of CPT Patti's deployment.

THE NEXT PRIVATE TO BE REPRIMANDED FOR POPPING OFF TO THE PRESS

I can't begin to tell you how bad this could get for her. In the first place, it isn't within her pay grade to determine whether there is a reason to be there.

Secondly, since she used her email privileges to send these messages to the TV station, she may wind up costing many soldiers email privileges - and that could really be bad for her as soldiers have ways of getting revenge.

Like other troops, Mary is sweltering in 120-degree heat, with no air conditioning, eating packaged meals for months and drinking only two bottles of water a day.

She's written us here at KIRO 7 Eyewitness News saying, "the military expects us to be happy out here. I'm very happy serving my country, but not when the government fails to take care of you."

"We volunteered our lives to be out here and we get treated worse that people in prison."

Private Yahne also writes, "There is no real reason for us to be out here!!!!, We're protecting the oil is all, and as far as the supposed war ending, it hasn't. Not when everyday soldiers are still getting mines placed in front of convoys. Rocket propelled grenades thrown at us."

REPLACING THE 3D ID

The 82nd Airborne Division's equipment was on the move Thursday.

A convoy of vehicles was on Interstate 95 in the early afternoon, heading for South Carolina ports for shipment to Iraq.

The equipment is from the division headquarters, the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment and supporting units. The 507th Corps Support Group and other units of the 1st Corps Support Command are helping with the move.

The units from the 82nd will replace the 3rd Infantry Division, which will return to Fort Stewart, Ga.

The 82nd paratroopers are scheduled to begin deploying to Iraq in September. They are expected to stay in the country for about six months. With their arrival, two of the division's three brigades will be deployed in the effort to root out Saddam loyalists and rebuild Iraq.

SENIOR PENTAGON OFFICIAL SAYS NO PAY CUT

But the details are fuzzy..."other compensation powers", "incentive and other measures".

Stay tuned...we'll try to follow this one all the way.

Undersecretary of Defense David Chu answered sharp criticism from Democratic presidential candidates over a press report that the Pentagon favored cutting the pay of combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan because it supported letting the special increases expire.

"No one ever said we wanted to reduce pay in Iraq and Afghanistan," Chu, who is in charge of military personnel and readiness, told reporters.

"We prefer other compensation powers to ensure that we target benefits on the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan," he added, citing incentive and other packages that the Pentagon is authorized to use...

But Chu and Defense Department spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the Pentagon planned all along to use incentive and other measures to keep paychecks in Afghanistan and Iraq at current levels, even if danger and family separation pay went down.

"There is no intention of allowing compensation for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan to fall," Chu said.

"The premise that we would somehow disadvantage U.S. forces in combat is absurd," added Di Rita.

They said that the pay of troops serving in Kuwait near Iraq was also unlikely to change.

Meanwhile, a White House spokesman has this to say.

"We support extending the pay provisions," White House spokesman Jimmy Orr said late Thursday afternoon after a day in which Bush's political opponents bashed him for what they said was a callous attitude toward combat troops who are still suffering casualties.

"We intend to ensure they continue to receive this compensation at least at the current levels," the Defense Department said in a separate statement about members of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines.

The issue stems from congressional action April when the House and Senate increased the imminent danger pay for the first time in more than a decade to $225 a month from $150. The family allowance was raised from $100 to $250 monthly.

However, the increases, which were retroactive to last October, are set to expire on Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year, unless Congress and the president continue them.

Last month, the Pentagon sent Congress an interim budget report detailing requests for spending cuts. It said the Defense Department supported rolling back the increases, which it said would cost more than $25 million a month to continue. It said that in addition to supporting a pay rollback, Pentagon experts would launch a study of the entire issue of combat pay.

SLAPPING THE SAND WEASELS

One Arab calls it like he sees it.

Ever since the latest phase of the Iraqi crisis started last autumn, most Arab countries have found themselves in a hole. What is surprising is that they to continue to dig, making the hole deeper.

The Arabs’ initial predicament was understandable. Until the last minute they did not believe that the US would invade. They hoped that the whole thing would blow over. One Arab leader described the crisis as “a summer storm.” At the end of January, Amr Moussa, the Arab League Secretary General, told me during a dinner in Davos that he was “absolutely sure” there would be no war. When asked why, he said, “Something will come up.”

Well, what came up was the US-led invasion. The Arabs had developed no policy to prevent it or, when it happened, to influence its course. More than three months after the fall of the Baathist regime, there has been no attempt at developing a common Arab analysis of the war and its aftermath. Instead, most Arab states have had recourse to their traditional methods of negation and dissimulation. They have refused to recognize the newly created Governing Council, and toyed with the idea of suspending Iraq’s membership of the Arab League. They have used the United Nations as a fig leaf to hide their lack of a policy on Iraq.

Asked by the US to allocate peacekeeping troops to Iraq, some have said yes, some have said perhaps, and some have made noises that mean neither yes nor no. The general mood is one of rejectionism, saying no because it is believed, wrongly, that Arabs like naysayers.

Please read it all. It is worth it.

REPORTING THE NEWS...OR CREATING IT?

A letter purportedly written by deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein called on Iraq's powerful Shi'ite Muslim clergy to call for a jihad (holy war) against U.S. occupation, Al Jazeera television reported on Wednesday.

''If the hawza (Shi'ite seminaries) calls for a jihad, this would unify the whole Iraqi people against the occupation,'' said the letter that the Arabic satellite channel said was written by Saddam in answer to questions sent to him.

The authenticity of the handwritten could not be immediately established. Al Jazeera showed footage of the letter without giving details of how it was obtained

I am not a journalist. But I see things happening under the guise of journalism today that give me pause.

Among these things is the willingness of journalists today to serve - wittingly or un - as the shills of evil.

Let me explain.

First, we begin with a premise: The rational world knows that Saddam Hussein was a tyrannical, murderous thug who murdered his way into power in Iraq. That he is gone is a good thing for the people of Iraq.

In this premise I do not require you to believe that current Iraq is necessarily a good thing...only that being rid of Saddam Hussein is a good thing.

OK - now. You are the Managing Editor at a news outlet. Someone knocks on the back door and a masked man delivers a package. He says "this is from Saddam Hussein".

Someone opens the package. It is a video tape...or perhaps a letter. The message is by now a familiar one - someone claiming to be Saddam exhorts Iraqis and other Arab "brothers" to rise up in jihad against the Americans.

What do you do? Do you publish it or not?

Is it news? Debatable. It is not as if this message was successfully delivered elsewhere by the purported Saddam. No public speech, no purchased TV time? In fact, nothing whatsoever that would be difficult for someone on the run.

All they did was to deliver the message to you. If you were not a news outlet, you would not have received this message.

Indeed, if the news outlet ceases to exist, so does the man who delivered it, and so does the video tape or letter itself.

In other words, this is only news if the news outlet exists to MAKE it news.

Which isn't the job of news outlets.

But, if you are the decision maker at Al Jazeera television, you publish this as if it were a story.

And you spread to the word that Saddam is calling for a jihad against the Americans.

And you give the entire text, laying out the author's reasoning.

Doubtful that you have verified the source. But you publish it anyway.

So you have to ask yourself...are we a news organization, or have we just become a mouthpiece, indeed the only possible mouthpiece by which Saddam, the tyrannical murderous thug can spread his message to millions of Iraqis and Arabs?

Or, put another way, if I don't publish this thing...Saddam cannot speak to the masses.

You publish it anyway?

Shill.

SOME THINGS CAN'T HAPPEN FAST ENOUGH

This is among them.

The U.S. Army began training an Iraqi militia force on Friday to take on civil defense duties and pave the way for U.S. forces to leave Iraq.

Fifty young men hand-picked by tribal leaders started three weeks of intensive training at one of Saddam Hussein's main palaces in the northern town of Tikrit, which is now headquarters for the 4th Infantry Division.

Lt. Col. Steve Russell said similar training programs were expected to begin in other cities across Iraq shortly.

"Our goal is that you will take our place and take over the security of your own people," Russell told recruits and tribal leaders.

"We are training you to be the leaders of a larger force that we will be creating in the coming months," he said.

The militia will start off working with U.S. soldiers in joint patrols, but eventually will be responsible for defending key infrastructure and government buildings, Russell said.

The founding members of the new militia will be paid US$125 a month - more than twice the salary of former Iraqi soldiers - and are expected to commit to joining the civil defense force for a minimum of a year, Russell said.

KEEPIN' ON KEEPIN' ON

It started as a somber, formal ceremony with security uppermost in everyone's mind. It ended with an American serviceman clasping hands with an Iraqi police academy graduate as they kicked up their heels, dancing to drums and bagpipes.

Apache helicopters circled above the Iraqi Public Service Academy Thursday as 145 Iraqi police officers graduated from a three-week training program for officers who served on the force when Saddam Hussein was in power...

Despite the 12,000 police already on the street in the capital, Baghdad citizens say they still feel unsafe going to work or going out to restaurants or the shops.

But Mohammed Naama, 38, one of the graduates, said that while the situation in Baghdad was still unsettled, it was improving.

``The people, they respect the police, and when they see us out in the street, it helps restore their confidence in the law,'' he said, after asking permission from his U.S. military supervisor to step away from the group of graduates to speak to a reporter.

For Abdel Aziz Khisro, Thursday was a double celebration. Only hours after his graduation, he was to be married. A Kurd, he said critics of the new system belonged to the old era. ``They're used to being oppressed and oppressing,'' he said, while watching Iraqi police link fingers with U.S. soldiers and dance in a circle.

SOMEBODY SCREWED UP...BIG TIME

And my guess is that someone's career just jumped the tracks.

Moving quickly to try to defuse anger that threatens to ignite riots in a Baghdad slum, U.S. military leaders admitted Thursday it was a mistake for troops to open fire on civilians who became hostile after a helicopter interrupted their religious gathering.
U.S. officials said the Wednesday shootings came after residents of the Shiite Muslim neighborhood threw stones and fired weapons, including a rocket-propelled grenade, at the helicopter because they believed it had knocked a religious banner off a communications tower. One person was killed and four injured.

The local U.S. commander expressed deep regret and vowed to scale back patrols and helicopter flights in Thawra, a poverty-stricken district of northeastern Baghdad, formerly known as Saddam City. Locals recently renamed it Sadr City in honor of a celebrated Shiite cleric.

The quick and unusual apology -- immediately dismissed by local clerics as inadequate -- comes as U.S. occupation leaders are grappling with rising Iraqi outrage over mounting civilian casualties at checkpoints and during raids.

The gesture also underscored the U.S. desire to maintain support among Shiite Muslims, 60 percent of Iraq's population and key to the nation's reconstruction.

"Our intent is not to alienate the Shia people," Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. ground troops in Iraq, said at a briefing in Baghdad on Thursday.

Accounts of what happened differ. Witnesses alleged that soldiers in the helicopter deliberately tried to remove the banner, but Sanchez said it appeared to be an accident. In the ensuing fire, local clerics said, a 10-year-old boy was killed. Sanchez said Thursday that troops killed the individual who launched the RPG, but clerics, who have video footage of the incident, insist that no such weapon was used.

In his letter of apology to the clerics, Lt. Col. Christopher K. Hoffman, commander of the 2nd Squadron of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, said: "We deeply regret what has happened today. What occurred was a mistake and was not directed against the people of Sadr City. I am personally investigating this incident and will punish those that are responsible." The letter was dated Wednesday, and offered compensation and medical treatment to those injured.

A second message of apology was sent late Thursday, clerics said, offering to pull troops back "for the time being."

But the religious leaders rejected both overtures, demanding an immediate and permanent withdrawal of U.S. troops from Sadr City, an apology from a higher-ranking officer and compensation to victims in accordance with Islamic law.

HOT - AND THE 501ST FSB DOC SAYS SO

In Baghdad, peak temperatures have exceeded 115 degrees for 10 of the past 11 days. “It’s like standing in a blow dryer,” Sgt. David Harris of the 1st Armored Division said between sips from a water bottle as he guarded the Health Ministry.

The relentless heat has become more than a nuisance to the tens of thousands of U.S. troops posted in Iraq. Of the 79 Americans who have died in Iraq of causes unrelated to combat since May 1, at least two — and perhaps as many as five — have succumbed to the heat, according to defense officials.

The most recent such incident occurred Tuesday, when a soldier with the 4th Infantry Division died in his sleep from what commanders described as heat stress, which has been defined as a condition in which the total net heat load on the body from internal heat production and external sources exceeds the body’s capacity to cool itself...

Maj. Michael Pelzner, the senior physician with the 501st Forward Support Battalion, counsels soldiers and commanders on preventing injuries from the heat, as well as from hostile fire.

“It’s something everybody needs to have in the back of their mind,” said Pelzner, who runs a one-room trauma clinic at the site of the former Iraqi police academy. “It has to be part of the mission.”

Pelzner said soldiers are often so focused on their duties that they pay little or no attention to their health. “Often the young guys are so gung ho, they want to complete the mission, they often don’t take the time to drink water,” he said.

Then again, the heat was the main topic of conversation at Mule Skinner Base, where soldiers of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment stood guard at a former military college.

Sgt. Scott Anderson, 42, of Fort Collins, Colo., whipped open his flak jacket and fatigues to show a soaked undershirt. Four months ago, before his stint in Iraq, he weighed 185 pounds. He said he now checks in at 170.

“You always look like you’ve come out of the pool,” he said.