A GOOD RUNDOWN ON THE CURRENT STATE OF IRAQ.

20 Questions. Here is one of them.

15. What reconstruction is going on?

The rebuilding of Iraq is going frustratingly slow in the eyes of most Iraqis. Two months after the old regime fell, they still have no clean drinking water and uncollected rubbish is piled high in the city streets, rotting in the 40-plus-degree heat.

Coalition forces have engineers working at rebuilding schools and hospitals across the country, even in hot spots such as Fallujah, which has thus far been the centre of anti-American resistance. A loud civic cheer went up this week when front-end loaders began tackling the mountain of garbage on the streets of Baghdad.

Iraqis are experts in surviving such conditions. Safe drinking water has been scarce ever since United Nations sanctions restricted the importation of chlorine (it might be used to make chemical weapons). Imported, bottled mineral water remains the norm.

Merchants on every second street corner flog the use of their hand-held Thuraya satellite phones for several U.S. dollars a minute -- and after decades of being cut off from outside, Iraqis gleefully pay all they have to call relatives in Dubai, Jordan, Europe and North America, to say how happy they are the old regime is gone, and to complain about the new one.

Read it all here.

(Via Instapundit)

BEST LINE OF THE DAY COMES IN A WASHINGTON TIMES PIECE EXPLORING THE MARRIAGE PREDICAMENT OF IRAQI WOMEN.

Despite the postwar tide of Islamic rigor sweeping southern and central Iraq, many women here are determined to be beautiful and sensual, even as the culture demands greater modesty.

Strappy sandals, for example, poke incongruously from the bottoms of fluttering hemlines — flashing what one U.S. colonel described as "local T&A — toes and ankles."

It is a good read and you'll find it here.

YA THINK?

Iraq's fuel pipelines came under fresh attack on Monday by elements apparently bent on disrupting US plans to use Iraqi oil revenues to rebuild the country , as Saddam Hussein's soldiers won a pay battle with coalition forces.

The third attack on Iraq's pipelines in less than two weeks hit in the northwest of the country on what was thought to be a key fuel line to Syria, amid a warning that such attacks could become a daily occurrence.

"The ministry is aware of an attack near al-Abidiyah al-Gharbiya not far from the Syrian border," an oil ministry official said.

"It seems there are people prepared to mount such attacks every day on Iraq's pipelines," he added...

Read it here.

MY GUESS IS THIS STORY GETS A LOT OF PLAY - ESPECIALLY AMONG THOSE WHO OPPOSED THE WHOLE THING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

On a scorching afternoon, while on duty at an Army airfield, Sgt. David J. Borell was approached by an Iraqi who pleaded for help for his three children, burned when they set fire to a bag containing explosive powder left over from war in Iraq.

Borell immediately called for assistance. But the two Army doctors who arrived about an hour later refused to help the children because their injuries were not life-threatening and had not been inflicted by U.S. troops.

Now the two girls and a boy are covered with scabs and the boy cannot use his right leg. And Borell is shattered.

"I have never seen in almost 14 years of Army experience anything that callous,' said Borell, who recounted the June 13 incident to The Associated Press...

Borell said he felt betrayed by the Army, which he joined after high school. Borell's wife gave him a silver bracelet that says: "Duty, Honor, Country.' He wears it to remind him why he's in Iraq.

"After today, I wonder if I will still be able to carry the title 'soldier' with any pride at all,' said Borell.

But let's put this in perspective.

We have literally hundreds of thousands of US Servicemen and Women in that country trying to creat a better life for the Iraqi people. I don't think we can be fairly accused of callousness.

Although the story doesn't say it, I can bet you the physicians were following orders.

That is what soldiers do.

It works like this. The last time you went to the emergency room in the USA, how many hours did you wait before getting attention? If your case is typical, it was an astonishingly long time, especially considering this is supposed to be - well - an emergency room.

But the law of supply and demand is not suspended for medical reasons.

For many folks the emergency room is the only place they can get care. Even routine care.

And that clogs the system.

Consider this then. There are 24 million Iraqis in that country. Compared to that number the US Forces make up .8 percent of the population. That is, less than one percent.

And most of those drive or ride in armored vehicles for a living. A tiny tiny percentage of the US Forces are medics, even fewer are doctors.

Now, with US Forces getting picked off on a daily basis, someone has to make the hard decision to preserve the medical capabilities for their primary purpose. To tend to injured soldiers.

And you do that by establishing rules of engagement for medical services, just as you establish them for the Infantry.

Based on the doctors comments, those rules seem to be to treat Iraqi's if (a) lives are at risk or (b) if US Forces caused the wounds.

Otherwise, they must use the Iraqi medical facilities, for better or worse.

And I can all but guarantee you the two doctors did not write the rules of engagement. Remember, they swore a Hippocratic oath.

Without these rules, we treat one, the other 24 million people will expect it too. And we just don't have the assets.

It isn't kind, it isn't pretty. But it is the way it has to be.

No, Sergeant...my wife isn't in harm's way because she is callous.

It's because she is a soldier.

And soldiers follow orders...whether they agree with them or not.

And professional soldiers don't bitch to the press about fellow soldiers following orders.

So shut the hell up already...and watch your lane.

MORE GOOD LOCAL COVERAGE.

This story puts a human face on the plight of the 3d Infantry Division.

Enough of pounding across Iraqi sand in a tank or Humvee.

Enough of meals ready to eat and 140-degree heat.

Enough already for Army Sgt. Ben Patti, 25, a Merchantville native on a protracted, onerous stay in Iraq after being in the leading force that swept the country and took Baghdad.

"It's time to go home and be with the family," Patti said Monday during a satellite cell phone call from western Iraq. "I've been away for a year with the exception of three weeks. I have about a year left (on enlistment). When it's over, I'm done."

Patti, commander of an M-1A1 Abrams tank, and the dozen men he leads thought they were coming home in May. However, their orders changed when troops continued coming under fire well after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled.

" `Disappointment' is the understatement of the year," he said.

Bring 'em home, please.

A LITTLE BIT SCARY.

The loud comments about Americans running roughshod around the middle east are predictable. The unknown quantity here is whether this spill over the border might be permanent.

As if we aren't already stretched too thin.

But the United States does not want the search for Hussein to widen the conflict. Officials refused today to discuss the implications of the incursion onto Syrian territory, and would give no details about how far troops thrust into Syria, how long they stayed there, or how they got into the firefight.

The administration has rankled Syrian leaders by accusing them of allowing senior Iraqi leaders to pass into Syria along smuggling routes.

A secretive group called Task Force 20 spearheaded the U.S. assault on the convoy. The covert force specializes in tracking and targeting Iraqi officials based on intelligence from the CIA and other sources, defense officials said. Made up mostly of Army soldiers, Task Force 20 has targeted Hussein and others since before the war began, one official said.

Read it all here.

BUILDING BRIDGES IN BAGHDAD.

Traffic might have been a little slower across the reconstructed bridge than it was before the original one was destroyed during the conflict, but it gave motorists a shorter route to the north than the one they had since the span’s destruction.

“This is the first bridge to connect Baghdad to the north of Iraq,” said Baghdassar Avedisian, an Iraqi engineer who studied at the University of Michigan years ago.

Avedisian said the bridge — which replaces a temporary structure the military erected to get its vehicles across the river — will help bring more trade from surrounding countries, such as Turkey, Iran and Syria.

“The real aspect of this bridge is that it’s going to make it easier for the people in this region to move around,” Strock said in his remarks.

It took more than 100 members of the 38th about 100 hours to take down the temporary structure and put up the two new spans. Capt. Carrington Stoffels, the company commander, said it would last “as long as they need it to last.”

Its a good story. Read it all here.

CONNECTICUT'S OWN. How cool.

The 1st Battalion, 33rd Field Artillery Regiment has been “adopted” by the state of Connecticut and marked the event with a ceremony last week at Warner Barracks...

As part of the adoption, the 1st Battalion adds a new motto: “Connecticut’s Own,” that will be used with the regimental motto of “Servabo Fidem,” or “I will keep faith.”

Also, the battalion will fly the Connecticut state flag alongside the U.S. flag and the battalion colors wherever in the world it is — whether at Bamberg’s Warner Barracks or deployed across the globe. Recently, the unit displayed the Connecticut flag while deployed to Czech Republic for a training exercise, Tierney said.

Read the whole piece here.

AN EXAMPLE OF THAT CAN-DO ATTITUDE, IN SPITE OF NO TRAINING.

“We’re out doing something good here,” said Pfc. Josh Rogers, 25, adding he was “kind of shocked” to learn of the change in mission. “We have no training for this at all.”

But the soldiers are learning quickly and have tackled the job with a zeal he’s not seen before, said battalion commander Lt. Col. Jeff Lieb, 41, who pitched in to lift 120-pound boxes of munitions — leading by example.

The soldiers have learned the proper way to stack rocket propelled grenades and to stay away from ammunition labeled with a black band, indicating the presence of highly explosive white phosphorous.

“Make no mistake about it, this is a dangerous mission,” Lieb said.

Read it all here.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CAN-DO AND CAN DO.

I think most folks who have never worn the uniform may not understand certain aspects of why this mission might be one of extreme danger.

Previously we have discussed here the fact that a peacekeeping mission robs the US Army of two great advantages...its speed (and therefore its ability to seize and maintain the initiative.), and its lethality.

But there is more to it than that...a simpler concept we should all understand.

The US Army is not trained for peacekeeping.

Well, let me rephrase that.

The US Army is not trained for peacekeeping at any levels that even remotely approach how well trained they are for warfighting.

Let's examine this a bit.

In 1778, General George Washington, recognizing the shortcomings of the nation's young army, requested assistance from Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian officer to establish excellence in the ranks.

Through diligence, hard work and "yankee ingenuity" ultimately our Army defeated the British, a major world military power.

And though there have been lapses in training and readiness, generally speaking the US Army has done a good job in what Sun Tsu, in the oldest military treatise in the world, calls the "Art of War".

Consider the outcomes of two world wars once the Yanks entered.

Although many began counting the "savings" to be yielded by the "Peace Dividend" at the end of the cold war, in reality the US Army has been called on to do more, in more places than ever before.

When you are the only effective cop on the beat, well, the shifts get long.

As demonstrated by Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the US Military continues to break new ground - to develop new tactics, and to integrate services into a joint fight unparalleled in history.

Indeed, our senior leaders take a year from their careers to attend the Army War College. They study war.

At Fort Leavenworth there exists a school of the brightest minds in the US Army, the School of Advanced Military Studies, referred to only half jokingly as the Jedi Knights.

Every Army division based in the USA trains every year at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. And when they train, they train at war.

Here in Germany each brigade gets a rotation at the Combat Maneuver Training Center every year. Note that: combat.

The fact is that our Army has not been seriously challenged in recent history. But one can make a good argument that the US Army is currently without peer. At least in combat.

There is an old truism in the Army: Train as you fight. That is, no shortcuts in training, because there can be no shortcuts in war.

The American people understand how good our Army is. But I'm not sure they understand what it takes to make it that good.

It takes training. Serious training. And it takes a professional army, comprised of patriotic men and women who answer the nation's (and increasingly the world's) call and school themselves to learn and understand the Art of War as fully as a physician understands the art of healing.

Because war today isn't a pick-up game. The amazing ground and air weapons systems, information systems and logistics systems are precise and complex. War today can't be won by teaching Johnny to shoot his M1 Carbine, then sending him "over there".

And so we train. To fight.

Now there is an amazing ethos alive in the Army today. It is one that fills Americans with pride when they encounter it.

Nowhere in the entire US Army will one ever hear one utter the phrase "it can't be done".

In fact, as if to prove the point, the motto of the V Corps, currently in Iraq, is "It will be done."

It is an interesting result of the Army culture, and Army training, that soldiers believe in themselves and their mates to the extent that they simply assume they can do anything.

All around the Army you will hear it in common phrases and mottos. Can-do. Whatever it Takes. No Mission Too Tough. All the Way.

We saw it recently in the story about the 16th Engineer Brigade in Baghdad...when guys trained in bulldozing to create large flat spaces, or berms of earth, (called horizontal construction in Army speak) built and raised a radio tower in the midst of Baghdad.

They weren't trained for that. But the mission called for it. "Can-do, Sir."

In fact when you hear a soldier exclaim that he wasn't trained for a given job, usually it is a statement of pride. "...but I'm doing it anyway, and succeeding" is implied.

And for years it was said that it was precisely this flexibility - this Yankee Ingenuity - of our forces that stymied the leadership of the army of the Soviet Union. "We study US warfighting doctrine", one Soviet General was quoted as saying, "but the Americans never follow it."

So our forces have this marvelous Can-Do attitude. A professional soldier needs nothing more than to know that there is a mission to be done. And that soldier will pack up, leave home and family, and go do it.

Even if he's not trained for it.

Peacekeeping isn't war. We are good at war...but peacekeeping isn't war.

And we are not trained. Not like we are for war.

We don't have 228 years of experience in peacekeeping.

Sun Tzu never wrote The Art of Peacekeeping.

Jomini never wrote On Peacekeeping.

We don't have a Peacekeeping Maneuver Training Center.

We don't have the Army Peacekeeping College, nor the School for Advanced Peacekeeping Studies.

America expects much of its Army. And America's Army delivers to the best of its training, and beyond...thanks to the Can-Do ethos indegenous to the force.

But in the end there are things that Can-Do can't do.

And that is why this is potentially a very dangerous thing.

ALTHOUGH NOT SURE I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING IN THIS ARTICLE, I FOUND THIS COMMENT TO BE INTRIGUING.

'the window of opportunity which occurred with the fall of Saddam was not seized in terms of establishing stability'.

'In the entire region - and Iraq is typical - there is a sense that America can do whatever it wants. So that if America decides to protect the oilfields and oil ministry, it can.

'And if America doesn't provide electricity and water or fails to protect medical supplies, it is because they don't want to or they don't care.'

THIS IS THE SOLDIER KILLED ON SUNDAY IN THE CONVOY AMBUSH SOUTH OF BAGHDAD.

For me personally this is the frightening piece of the whole thing. Because CPT Patti and her crew have to run supply convoys from time to time around
Baghdad.

A South Carolina soldier has died in Iraq after an attack on his military convoy south of Baghdad, officials said Monday.

Army Spc. Orenthial Javon Smith, 21, of Allendale, was killed Sunday. He was a petroleum supply specialist serving with the Army's 1st Armored Division in Iraq.

"He was in a convoy that was ambushed by small arms fire," said Maj. Steve Stover, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon.

The officer confirmed that Spc. Smith served with the 123rd Maintenance Support Battalion based in Dexheim, Germany. He joined the Army in June 1999, Maj. Stover said.

You can see it all here.

UPDATE: Turns out this soldier was on a resupply run to replenish the Gators' stock. He wasn't from our unit...but was providing service to our unit.

We are so sorry.

TUESDAY, JUNE 24th. The 44th day of CPT Patti's deployment.

IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO SEE IF THIS HAS ANY EFFECT ON THE VIOLENCE TOWARD OUR TROOPS OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS.

In another key step toward reconstruction, U.S. officials announced early plans to bring back Iraq's army, once one of the Arab world's largest and most experienced.

Recruitment for the new force is to begin next week. An initial division of 12,000 men will be ready within a year and will grow to 40,000 within three years, said Walter Slocombe, a senior adviser for security and defense for the administration.

That would still be a fraction of the Saddam's military force of 400,000.

Slocombe also promised support payments of $50 to $150 per month to up to 250,000 ex-soldiers.

The moved is aimed at stemming anger among former Iraqi army soldiers who lost their livelihood when the U.S.-led administration disbanded the army May 23. Ex-servicemen have since staged several protests, and U.S. troops killed two last Wednesday when one such demonstration turned violent.

"I am pleased to announce this first step in creating an armed force that will be professional, nonpolitical, militarily effective and truly representative of the country," Slocombe said.

No payments would be made to the top four ranks of members of the now-banned Baath party. Anyone receiving funds must renounce Baathism, the political ideology that guided Iraq for more than three decades, even before Saddam came to power in the 1970s.

Read the whole thing here.

HOW TO AVOID MISSING THOSE PHONE CALLS FROM BAGHDAD.

If I'd only have put my brain to this a couple of days ago. This is for those of us living in Germany.

Painful as it is, call Deutsche Telekom at 0800-330-1000. Tell them you want "anrufweiterschalltung" (call forwarding to you and me). It will cost you Euro 2.50 per month. Can be activated the same day if you call early in the day.

Alternatively, you may already have this feature and just not know it. If you have are paying for T Net 100 then you already have call forwarding. But you'll have to consult with DT or a knowledgeable friend on how to make it work.

Anyway - once it is in place, forward your home phone to your "handy" everytime you leave the house.

So simple.

ONE NEVER KNOWS THE ODD TURNS LIFE TAKES.

The course of today's posting has led me to an email exchange with the author of that beautiful piece (see POWERFULLY MOVING PIECE) below.

And as you will see, I am blessed as a result of it. As part of our correspondence she sent me a copy of a column she wrote in observance of the 25th anniversary of the USA's departure from South Vietnam.

I am tense in this place, watching, watching, watching. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Walter Cronkite is there. It is a memory place lined with newscasts of gray military coffins and American flags, Agent Orange, Army fatigues, protesters spitting on young soldiers, and military funerals in small towns across America.

I am a "waiting wife" in my memory graveyard. My friends are Vietnam protesters. In this place in my memory, my infant son is crying in the background, but I shush him while I tensely watch the television set. Someone sings protest songs in the other room, and my friends speak cruelly of the men such as my young husband who have been sent overseas and emotionally abandoned by their Congress, their president, their friends and their neighbors.

It is here that I remember awaiting, each day, the unmarked Army vehicle, which blessedly never comes to my door.

I know that nearby and faraway across the country, those cars, each with two solemn men who knock on the doors of mothers and wives, are arriving daily. They arrive at the doorsteps of brokenhearted families year after year, from the 1960s to the 70s. There are 58,000 cars which deliver the news to fathers and mothers and wives and fiances who cry out in unspeakable grief as they hear the words. "Your son/husband/father is dead." I am blessed that I never see the death car at my memory's door. But I am sorrowful remembering all those who are met by it at the threshold of heartbreak.

My friends, swap some of the dated specifics in this piece and in many ways she could be speaking of our community today.

Read the whole thing here.

But do it slowly.

A QUICK WORD OF EXPLANATION.

For reasons I can't explain sometimes, as today, there is a huge multi-hour delay between the time I update the site and the time the changes actually appear where you can see them.

I don't know why.

NICE SANDY BEACH, BUT WHERE IN THE HECK IS THE OCEAN?

“You should have seen it,” said Sgt. Troy Wood, 35, a member of the Idaho Army National Guard who volunteered to deploy to Iraq with the Oregon Guard, which brought 14 boats to Iraq. “We were toting these boats clear across a desert. It was the funniest thing.”

Read this neat story about Guard Guys doing boat patrols in the Tigris River.

WE MENTIONED THE VIETNAM PARALLELS HERE A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO.

Now the Christian Science Monitor does too.

The attacks on American troops are disturbing, but a pattern appears if one considers: (1) the rapid collapse of Iraqi defenses in Baghdad at the war's end, with thousands of regime figures and supporters vanishing; and (2) the location of most of the attacks on US soldiers in the Sunni Muslim region west and north of Baghdad, inhabited by the core supporters of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime.

It appears that these regime remnants, reportedly well financed and aided by foreign fighters, are organizing guerrilla warfare against US troops. This poses a Vietnam-type problem for the US military: It must root out the guerrillas from the local population without alienating that population in the process.

Read it here.

I'M JUST SPECULATING HERE BUT I BELIEVE SOONER OR LATER CPT PATTI AND CREW WILL BE RELOCATED FROM SHAAB STADIUM SO SOCCER CAN RETURN TO BAGHDAD IN A BIG WAY.

The future of Iraq may in part depend on soccer balls, jump ropes, and volleyballs.

Half the Iraqi population is under 18. This fact is important to keep in mind amid all the contradictory reports coming out of Iraq these days - that people are jubilant to have freedom but despairing over lack of security and services, resistant to occupation yet reluctant to have troops leave while chaos reigns. It is crucial, therefore, that reconstruction efforts focus on the youth.

If the children of Iraq are at the center of the planning and funding, half the country - the next generation - will be served.

"The kids are the best part of this country," a sunburned US Army sergeant in Baghdad told me. "If we can take care of the kids, the rest will take care of itself." The sergeant, who is from Boston, patrols Baghdad neighborhoods where children frequently run up and surround him, some kissing the patches on his uniform. However, he recounted how one afternoon, a boy around 16 walked toward him waving a pistol.

"Put down the gun!" the sergeant urged. The boy kept coming, still waving the gun, a big smile on his face. "Put it down!" the sergeant insisted, gesturing to the ground, as he tried to assess whether this was just a boy or a potential enemy. "PUT ... IT ... DOWN!" Finally, the boy put the gun down.

"I'd love to get them all to turn in their guns for soccer balls!" the sergeant says now. "Can you get me a thousand soccer balls?"

Read it all here.