Christmas in Baghdad

Given that the lapses between my blog updates grow ever longer, as material continues to thin and obligations continue to thicken, this will likely be my last entry prior to heading home for Christmas. I am one of the fortunate souls whose accumulated time in country makes it practical to take R&R during this very special family holiday season.

I write this on 16 December, just four days prior to leaving and nine days prior to Christmas, but the holiday spirit remains difficult to summon here in the middle of Baghdad. There are decorations and trees popping up in different offices and cubicles, cards piling up rapidly from friends, family, and the thousands of authors of “Dear Military Member” correspondence who ship by the case. The Embassy has festive lights strung everywhere around the compound. The dining facility plays Christmas songs at every meal. Even the weather is trying to help, as it has grown both cool and damp, with the sun hanging low in the southern sky in a dull and near-constant haze.

Still, one day stretches into the next and the battle rhythm does not allow for the numerous festivities and frivolities that typically drive us breathlessly through December, desperately seeking to jam more and more goodwill into the days leading up to Christmas eve and the big exhale. The giddiness that rises and stays so close to the surface as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is whittled to the carcass is much more deeply buried here, anchored down by the surroundings, by the endless tasks, and by the simple fact that the overwhelming majority of folks cannot be home for Christmas.

I’m not suggesting the whole place is in some deep funk – it’s a lot more like business as usual with a vague sense that we’re missing something important. Even so, when Christmas day rolls around the calendars will be cleared, great food will be served in large quantities, cookies and candies will be gorged upon, gifts will be exchanged and, no doubt, more than a few Christmas carols will be sung. Sometime around 4 p.m. local time here, though, people will begin drifting off to be by themselves. They are looking for phones in a quiet place or maybe heading to their laptops in their CHU or carrying those laptops to where they can find a good WI-FI connection.

It will be Christmas morning in the U.S. and I guarantee that everyone here who can will electronically plug themselves into it, via phone or Skype. A million tears will be shed here that afternoon as the mass of moms and dads, sons and daughters, and grandmothers and grandfathers watch or listen, trying to emotionally touch loved ones they cannot physically reach.

I did not mean for this bit of writing to dampen your spirits, but do ask for some small considerations. I am surrounded by brilliant and dedicated professionals in the Department of Defense and the Department of State. Almost all of them asked to come here, so there can never be pity. But at some point in time on Christmas day, raise a glass and honor our absent companions, both those whose empty chairs will be filled again next year and those whose will forever remain empty.

Then get a good night’s sleep because then, as always, they've got your back.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is a milestone on a couple of different levels here in Baghdad. The 25th of November happens to be precisely seven months since I swiped my I.D. card at a machine in Kuwait to mark the start of my deployment clock in the Iraqi theater. More significant, I think, is the passage of Thanksgiving 7,000 miles away from home.

It is by no means my first holiday in theater, of course. Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Columbus Day, and Veteran’s Day have all come and gone on my watch here beside the Tigris River. Each requires distinct reflections, and each is associated with its own traditional observations. But none equate to the concept of “home” quite like Thanksgiving does.

And so my own personal reflections and observations must adjust to this unwelcome reality. My little gang of analysts began the day at 0900 with a leisurely 4-mile walk, sort of providing the excuse for the culinary excess to come. The walk ended just as a flag football game began between two organizations I share a large cubicle farm with. I had a little down time after the game to have a cup of coffee and write this blurb before the next event, which is an Iraqi lunch in the office provided by our colleague Haidur. That will, in all likelihood, convince me of the need to sneak into the gym before heading to the dining facility in the afternoon for the massive Thanksgiving meal for which military mess halls are renowned.

I anticipate no earnest effort by anyone to engage in real work after dinner (not that any effort is being made before then, either), so that becomes the cue for folks to retreat to their CHUs and begin connecting with their loved ones back home. Bandwidth is always a challenge here and will no doubt be doubly challenging with the expected demand placed on Skype today.

With the adjustments to the holiday observation pretty much established, I’ll turn now to reflections. First and foremost involves the giving of thanks. It becomes pretty clear after spending a short amount of time in a place like Iraq that I and every fellow countryman of mine should drop to our knees every day and thank God we were born Americans. We certainly have long lists of peeves, gripes, and topics of grave concern, but the lights come on every time we hit the switch, the water is drinkable right from the tap, and it never crosses our minds that when we leave the house to visit or shop we might die a violent death. Go ahead and complain about potholes and school budgets – it’s your civic duty – but be thankful that these are the types of things that make your life difficult.

The big reflection on this day is, of course, family. Weirdly, I have pretty much zero concern about the ability of my family to take care of themselves and keep the home fires burning while I’m away. Susie has been managing so much, for so long, that I rarely have any troubling thoughts about the family’s ability to cope. However, I am fretting a great deal about the turkey and, more importantly, the gravy. These are my Thanksgiving tasks, usually begun immediately after reading the morning paper and culminating with the Last Task before serving, which is making gravy from the turkey drippings.

It will all get done, and done well, but it is what I think about on Thanksgiving, a comfortable routine that is traditionally a prelude to a wonderful day spent with family and friends, food and wine, fun and frivolity. This one hits home more than any other holidays, because this one is all about being thankful for what you have and you just can’t escape the fact that it all is, temporarily, just beyond your reach.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

For anyone paying attention, you know that finally, after months and months of posturing, bullying, sucking-up, foot-dragging, lying, arrogance, deceit, and lord knows what sort of illegal behaviors, we finally see conditions established to form the next government.

But enough of election day in the U.S. The same thing happened here in Iraq at about the same time. Eight months and four days after the national elections, the Iraqi Council of Representatives finally gathered to finish the session they opened, and left open, way back in June.

This probably requires some explanation, though the truth here won't necessarily clarify a great deal. In accordance with the Iraq constitution, the newly elected council of representatives (COR) must elect a President within, I think, a week of the first session. That would have been a simple enough deal except for this: every bloc/list/party that won seats in the government wants prestigious positions in the government and there is no systematic means of doing this. That means you can't name the President unless you know who the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the COR will be, and each of the three main ethnic and sectarian insists on at least one of these positions. Anyone not getting the position they want will insist on certain ministerial powers for their bloc/list/party to offset the diminished powers of their own office. Since all elected officials know this routine, they met for about an hour at the initial session, then went home without ever closing it. They have all been collecting paychecks (HUGE paychecks) for eight months and not doing a damn thing to earn it.

The Prime Minister is the plum position and the most powerful, so each bloc/list/party maneuvers to get it. It's a no-holds-barred ugly process and it puts the whole system in flux as power players seek alliances along any imaginable lines. Guys who hate each other's guts, sometimes multiple parties of guys who hate each other's guts, will merge then diverge, coalesce then fragment, form then deform, always trying to gain an edge that others won't be able to overcome.

There is no end to outsiders willing to "help." The U.S., Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, and anyone else candidates can woo or influence to make themselves appear to have the upper hand. The two primary contenders spent huge amounts of time visiting neighboring states in hopes of gaining some sort of "most favored candidate" status. Each of these countries has their own agenda to work, and there was a lot of behind-the-scenes pressure from every direction to form the government in ways favorable to those countries. The U.S. wants an inclusive and representative government to preclude too much Shia influence, which plays into the hands of Shia controlled Iran. We also want to limit governance roles for Muqtada Sadr, a rather thuggish dude with a large following in Iraq that collectively have shown no real talent for anything but mayhem. Iran, of course, has their own vision of how things should look, and Mr. Sadr figures prominently in that view.

Anyway, this soup has been simmering for a long time whilst being stirred by these many spoons. Somehow, all of the players reached a point where they all thought they agreed upon some grand bargain. The COR reconvened, they named the President, speaker of the COR, and a couple of vice Presidents before things started unraveling. It seems the leading vote-getter from the elections, Mr. Allawi, could not overcome the alliances forged by his nemesis Mr. Maliki, but did manage to force some sort of power-sharing deal that resulted in a brand-new position in the government. Unfortunately, the COR didn't bother to name him to this position on day one and things turned ugly.

I think they may have worked things back out, but we won't know for a few more days because after the first session they took a break for Eid al-Adha, the celebration of sacrifice held each year after the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). Once they reconvene, Mr. Maliki will be formerly charged to form the government and has 30 days in which to do so. That means satisfying all of the deals made to enable his claiming of Prime Minister, so I expect it will be an interesting time between now and Christmas.

If not before I leave, then upon my return from Christmas R&R there should be a fully-formed government. Insha'Allah.

Halloween and Subsequent Activities

November is here, along with Election Day, so I can add a couple of things to the list of things I DO NOT miss.

I do not miss election campaigning in the good ‘ol US of A. I catch glimpses of the madness on TV while eating in the dining facility and it is just a sad state of affairs. If these knuckleheads spent as much time ruminating on real problems as they spend on digging up dirt on their opponents they might actually come across as marginally enlightened.

The parallels to the political situation at home and in Iraq are alarming, though at least here a lot of it can be attributed to a lack of experience with self-government. The national elections here were in early March of this year and, while the government still has yet to form, all of the elected officials are drawing obscene paychecks and doing absolutely nothing. In the US, that also appears to be the endgame but within the construct of a fully formed government. It’s all about the paycheck and re-election, so safest to not do anything useful for the long-term good of the country because it probably will make the constituency angry.

Next on my list of things I don’t miss: I have not seen a single advertisement or store display, nor have I heard a single song or note, that suggests to me that Christmas is only 53 shopping days away! It is strangely refreshing.

Halloween has come and gone, but not unnoticed. We had a little gathering in CHUville, where we could suspend uniform requirements otherwise enforced, and did up the occasion as best we could. It was a good break in the routine and generated more excitement than I thought possible in terms of costumes. We had some tunes blasting, burned a lot of beef on the BBQ, and chugged a few NA Lowenbraus. Weather was awesome, as was the company.

I am remiss in my duties of recognizing departing guild members. One month ago we said farewell to Air Force LtCol Laura Garrett. She was an invaluable deputy for the organization, a brilliant analyst, and a superb ambassador for all of J-9. She returns to Albuquerque, NM, and her husband, squad of greyhounds, cat, horse, and nuclear munitions. I don’t believe she ever admitted which she missed the most. Thanks, Laura, and good luck in whatever comes next for you.

I alluded a few times to the pleasant change in weather conditions here. A few nights ago we had a nice little thunder storm and some accompanying rain. I got up early the next morning for a brisk walk and it was just plain gorgeous. Nothing like cooler temperatures and the smell of fresh rain to adjust your attitude upwards. I’ll bust out of here for R&R in about six weeks and the vastly improved climate should help ease the passage of that time.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I'm now a wee bit beyond the halfway point of my tour of Iraq. I've already lamented some of what I miss of my real life, so maybe the next question to address is: what's changed or not changed in six months?

I'll start with what hasn't changed. The government. The elections were in the beginning of March this year and now, almost seven months later, it has yet to result in a new government. That, for you trivia buffs, is a world record gap between voting and government formation.

What has changed for the better, in fact way better, is the weather. Highs still bump up against 100, but the lows are reaching low 70s, high 60s. It is downright pleasant. We used to sit out and smoke cigars on Saturday nights because almost everyone changes out uniforms on Sunday, and by the time you sat around outside for about two hours smoking and telling each other outrageous lies you were totally soaked with sweat.

Now we go light up twice a week just because it is nice to be able to be comfortable outside again.

There are some interesting phenomenon associated with the cooler weather.

Pretty much all of the water used on the compound is stored in giant above-ground plastic water tanks. During July and August the thermometer rarely dipped below 100 degrees and typically topped out between 118 and124. The water in these tanks is always warmer than body temperature, so even with the faucet cranked full cold it is always very warm.

It's no big deal for hand-washing -- you just always turn to cold. It makes for unsatisfying mouth rinse after tooth-brushing. You can make the logical leap to what this means for the commodes. I have absolutely no previous experience with such a butt-sauna sensation and it amused me.

But cooler weather means cooler water and things are approaching what I consider normal.

Another unchanging scenario is work. Most of the folks around here, me included, have no real need to move about the countryside. If you have no need, you have no justification for transport. So work is a weekly grind of charts, slides, e-mail, and meetings as we work through our seven-day battle rhythm. You can walk around the compound, about two miles if you take the longest route. Occasionally you can walk across the street to a different compound, but you must buddy-up to move between the two locations.

I suspect this is a lot like being sent off to some minimum securityconfinement facility, except you have to do a lot more work here.

Another positive change, though always a tenuous one, is the security situation across Iraq. The Iraqi Army and Police have become very busy and pretty good at what they are doing. It allows a lot more people to move around the country, go to markets, and generally work toward some sense of normalcy in their daily existence.

The best change is in my countdown to R&R. Less than two months to go! Home for Christmas, count on me, snow, mistletoe, yada yada. Can't wait.

Halloween is one week away. We're planning a party in CHUville, where we can get in costume without violating any regulations. Pictures to follow in a future blog.

Things I miss.

I am now just two weeks shy of hitting the halfway mark -- six months in theater.

You might be wondering: hey, what's it like living in a metal box 7,000 miles away from home, being forced to wear military uniforms at all times, prevented from drinking alcohol, working seven days a week, and sharing an installation with a sizeable civilian population for whom none of the restrictions apply and who live in actual apartments? And oh, yeah -- let's not forget about the rockets.

You can probably see where this is heading. It pretty much sucks.

I can clearly see the importance of having a mid-tour leave program to get folks out of this environment, even if just for a couple of weeks, so they can re-connect with the people and the lifestyle they are beginning to desperately miss.

I'm ready to go home, even if just for a short while.

It's baseball playoff time and football is in full swing. All baseball playoff games happen sometime in the middle of the night here, so only the most rabid fan would bother watching them. The early NFL games start here at 2000 hrs (soon to be 2100), so it is possible to watch some at your computer (we get Armed Forces Network through some brilliant software application on our machines) and, if you really care, stay up for the whole game. Forget the second games, which start at 2315. It's not the same as lying on the couch staring at the big flat-screen with a cold beer in hand. I miss that.

Sundays are the closest thing to a weekend we get, since the start of work is pushed off until 1200. Unfortunately, it is the only large enough block of time available to sleep in, do laundry, clean the CHU, and maybe catch a little sun. It's not the same as grabbing the fat Sunday morning newspaper from the front yard, reading through breakfast and then retiring to the couch to finish the paper and any sleep I might have skimped on the previous night. I miss that.

The food is pretty darn good here, but it's more like going to a school cafeteria every day and piling various stuff on plates and in bowls and then sitting amongst the masses to wolf it down before ambling back to the office to continue the grind. It's not the same as lording over a well-seasoned flank steak on the grill whilst sipping a cold beer, then sitting down with family to catch up on what is going on in the world. I miss that.

I enjoyed my brief foray into ultimate Frisbee (I'll resume next week) but it's a pickup game with a bunch of dudes I've never met, many of whom are close to half my age and totally lacking in any common social reference with which to engage in spirited B.S. It's not the same as jamming a dozen fellow boondogglers into a beach house in the OB for three days of golf, war stories, and alcoholic excess. I miss that.


The CHU is a relative luxury, since I don't have to share it as many lower ranking folks do. The bed, with two memory foam mattresses stacked on the cheap issue one, is very comfortable. I've got TV, tunes, and a refrigerator as well as the much-coveted personal bathroom. But it's a lonely place. It's not the same as a home with family, a bed shared with my favorite lady, a refrigerator that has beer in it, and a shower in which you can reach up to wash your hair without banging your elbows. I miss that.

There's a lot more that I miss, but you get the point. My R&R is over Christmas, which is awesome. But it is still more than two months away.

At least the heat has finally given way to some very pleasant weather. I do not miss the cold.

War Story (sort of)

There I was, middle of Baghdad, middle of the night.

Minding my own business. Making the short walk along the roadway between FOB Union III and the Embassy Compound.

Suddenly, a black van comes screaming up next to me and screeches to a halt. A dude wearing a balaclava jumps out and butt-strokes me in the head with an AK-47, knocking me into the barrier next to the road.

Grabs me by the shirt and tries to drag me into the van. I know the bad guys are looking hard for hostages and that it never ends well, so I was hanging onto the barrier for dear life.

Frustrated, the dude grabs me by the boot and starts pulling, pulling, pulling my leg.


Just like I'm pulling yours.

The shiner and accompanying seven stitches are courtesy of a pickup game of Ultimate Frisbee. I haven't played the game in five or six years, but obviously it is just like riding a bike: it hurts when you crash.

I was hanging in pretty well with a group I was spotting about 20 years in terms of bodily wear and tear. Unfortunately only six showed up for this evening's game, so it was 3 on 3. That makes for too much field with too few bodies on it and it resulted in a lot more running around than I had hoped for.

But, as I said, I was holding my own. Until the bottom fell out. The field is a sports venue covered with artificial turf, a new and, it turns out, not particularly good experience for me. First thing I learn is that you don't dive for anything. I get a nice Susan B. Anthony coin-sized raspberry on my elbow as a not-so-gentle reminder about two minutes into this thing.

Next thing I learn is that you don't want to be in all that much of a hurry changing direction because there is no such thing as "pivot" on this turf. Any effort to do so becomes a"sprain" as your foot remains firmly planted while the rest of your leg and body are executing the hoped-for change in azimuth. This took all of maybe five minutes to experience.

Things went well for awhile after that as I just accepted that if the frisbee is a foot out of reach it will just have to remain so until it hits the ground. Or if the guy I'm covering makes a highlight-film move to put distance between us, hurrah for him and I 'll just hope they throw the damn disc over his head.

But sometimes you just get caught up in the moment and lose situational awareness when it's just you and him, running full tilt into the end zone to catch up with a throw that went long but is settling gently. The disc is all you see, focused on it like a Hellfire on Taliban. Knock it away and the other team is denied. Fail to knock it away and have to make the long walk to the other end of the field. Up we went, still on a dead run but each now hoping to defy gravity just a tad better than the other. I slapped the Frisbee, but he gripped it at the same moment. Gravity resumed its control, which is normally OK but it turns out some other forces were at work as well.

The other dude came down onto the field with the Frisbee in hand. I came down into a six-inch high curb that marks the end of the playing surface. Still having a fair amount of forward momentum, the curb stopped my foot while the rest of me was very much a body in motion. The planted foot became the pivot point around which the rest of me now wanted to turn, which translated into a big-time smackdown. My right hand, right shoulder, and right side of my head all hit the concrete in quick succession.

I got a ride in the ambulance, a crack team of military medical practitioners surrounded me like a scene out of M.A.S.H., and now Humpty Dumpty is together again. Most excitement I've had in five months, and quite enough, thank you.

Doc says I should be ready to go again in two weeks. We'll see how long these lessons stay learned.

Random Acts of Violence

It's time, I guess, to speak of the unspeakable. The RAV. Not cute little SUVs from Toyota, but Random Acts of Violence.

It has been pretty quiet here in the IZ for quite a while -- seems like a month or so. That changed pretty dramatically today.

Today (Sunday) is part of our "weekend," meaning we don't report to work until 1200. That means turning off the alarm clocks and chillin' in bed until the mood moves you. The mood that moved us this morning turned out to be the "duck and cover" alarm at 0830, followed closely by one pretty impressive boom and one not so impressive one.

For some perspective, there have been a lot of duck and cover alarms since I arrived here five months ago. There have been a lot fewer accompanying booms, meaning the vast majority were false alarms. So starting the day with a rare double boom was a bit ominous and disturbing.

Two hours later, we get two more booms with no alarm at all. They turn out to be vehicle-borne IEDs outside the IZ, but those tend to be huge explosions and real attention-getters. Four hours after that we get more alarms and more booms and it is starting to become a real nuisance.

We get one more early in the evening, and this is the one that makes me think about RAV and the bizarre reality into which I have been thrust. I had just left the dining facility, after yet another most excellent feast, and was waddling back to the office when I heard a high-pitched buzzing sound somewhere overhead. It was a new sound to me, and a bit of a mystery until I saw nearby security guards sprinting for the nearest shelter.

Now, these guys are out patrolling every day, a few of their buddies have been killed by rockets, and they are sensitized to the sound. So it was kind of like the famous EOD t-shirt: "I'm an explosives ordnance expert. If you see me running, try to keep up." I piled into the shelter with them and another dozen folks (this is about a five foot by ten foot space, so a bit close. And, of course, hot).

Fortunately the rocket was way high and wide of the compound because it impacted before half of us reached the shelter. Which also probably why it didn't trigger the alarm. But that is where the RAV thoughts come in to play.

I have some close friends that were here when things were really, really bad. These guys were commanders of combat units, so they weren't comfortably ensconced in the most secure chunk of real estate in Iraq, as I am. They saw people die, some of them their own soldiers. In telling their stories, the death of soldiers was often ascribed to the fact that it just wasn't their day.

I thought that was a bit cold, but I'm quickly changing my mind. It is incredibly random, and here in the IZ maybe even more so. So far, all attacks are from rockets and all rocket attacks originate several kilometers from where we are. The weapon of choice is the Katyusha rocket. It is not a precision weapon. Hitting a target 3-5 kilometers away with one is kind of like trying to hit someone with a bottle rocket 50 yards away.

Or like me trying to hit a fairway with my driver on the golf course. You know the range and direction to the target, but the outcome is very much in doubt. But every once in a blue moon it all comes together and works as planned. That is the first part of the randomness. The next is whether or not anyone happens to be anywhere near where it lands. There is quite a bit of acreage here, and the kill radius of a 107mm Katyusha is fairly small. Still, there are areas in which people are almost always moving around, potentially at risk.

Which brings us to the final random factor: who is it that just happens to be moving around in the wrong place, at the wrong time? I am almost always either in my CHU or at my desk when an alarm goes off. I have been caught outside a few times, but always for false alarms. Until today. So for the first time in five months I happened to be in the open during a real attack, but it passed harmlessly outside the compound (as most do).

But it makes you think. Of the nearly infinite outcomes of the trajectory of that rocket today, there were some that would have been disastrous.

If it wasn't your day.

Ranting

It is getting more and more difficult to find something interesting to talk about while sequestered here on the Embassy compound. Fortunately, there are occasional events in the world that lend themselves to opinions offered up from a Mideast perspective.

This particular event may be worthy of deep thoughts and insightful prose but, to peg the fun-o-meter, it is hard to beat a good old-fashioned rant.

So let's get it on...

We have reached an interesting temporal junction, at which two meaningful observations will be unfairly joined by the actions of a single idiot.

The two observations are 1) the 11 November remembrance of the victims of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and 2) the 10-12 November festival of fast-breaking, or Eid al Fitr, signifying the end of Ramadan.

The cause of the unfair joining is the hair-brained "Burn a Koran Day" scheme.

What, in the name of all that is holy, is up with the Wrong Reverend Terry Jones and his First Church of Bigotry down there in the Sunshine State? This clown is threatening to set Christianity back further in one day than Jim and Tammy Faye managed to do with years of self-aggrandizement.

How does the pique of a doddering fool warrant blanket condemnation of almost one-fourth of the world's population? Approximately 1.4 billion people are not going to be enamored of Jones' little gimmick. I might be less incensed over his incredibly bankrupt vision if it weren't for the fact that 26 million of that population live within a six-hour drive of where I sleep at night.

The more extreme of those 26 million joyfully launch rockets at us just for bragging rights in their little zombie circles. I'm a bit concerned about what they might do if actually pissed off.

Fortunately, 99.9% of the 26 M are not interested in either inflicting or absorbing mass casualties and, instead, are vigilant and steadfast in their efforts to prevent it. Just the same, I'd rather they not be miffed and thus possibly inclined to be a little less vigilant for a day or so.

For Jones, I would not be too surprised if "his god" phoned in a cancellation on the whole book-burning thing. I'm inclined to believe that any revelation that might rise from the ashes will be less about divinity and more about Darwinism. The guy needs to read up on Salman Rushdie or talk to some of the folks at the Dutch publication Jyllands-Posten. At the very best he will lose some sleep; at the very worst he will never wake up.

Since the whole thing is already well beyond common sense, we can only hope that whatever the next-best-thing to common sense happens to be prevails in this drama. If not, and some American soldier, tourist, or missionary is harmed as a result, maybe "his god" will talk him into mixing up a little drink that will whisk him off into whatever special hell his namesake Jim now resides.

Let's keep each of the afore-mentioned observations in the proper perspective and allow each the respect they deserve. Remember -- always remember -- the events of 9/11 and the early sacrifices of a global war on truly evil beings: violent zealots with no conscience and no respect for humanity. And give an appreciative nod for the personal sacrifices made each year by hundreds of millions of moderate Muslims, validating their spiritual beliefs through physical trials of hunger and thirst and culminating those trials with a three-day celebration of fellowship and appreciation for all that Allah provides.

Now THAT is a RANT!

It has been three days since President Obama's speech on Iraq and two days since GEN Austin replaced GEN Odierno and Operation New Dawn replaced Operation Iraqi Freedom. Everything seems largely unchanged yet...somehow different.

The pundits came out in full force to weigh in on these events and articulated some interesting opinions, for whatever they might be worth.

The President seemed to get it about right. The military did everything asked of them and, I think, a great deal more. After the wheels fell off the bus that got us here, military commanders throughout Iraq found themselves refereeing a very nasty civil war while simultaneously trying to sort out and kill the truly bad guys and effectively run the entire country.

It took several years and several thousand American lives, but slowly the landscape changed, the level of violence dropped precipitously, and Iraqis set about trying to restore some sense of normalcy to their lives. The Iraq security forces, both Army and police, grew steadily both in numbers and in capability. The combined efforts of the Iraqi and US forces relentlessly pursued the bad guys, disrupting their networks, choking off their funding, and capturing or killing most of their leadership.

All of that gets us to where we are today. A weird mix of violence and hope in a country groping, almost blindly, for a future it knows exists but can't quite see. A country that 10 years ago had only two allowable TV stations to watch and now is a sea of satellite dishes. A country whose pre-war citizens possessed just a few thousand of the cell phones that are now ubiquitous. A country boasting 40% more available electricity then during the Saddam era, supplying only one half of what the demand has grown to be as air conditioners and refrigerators continue to appear.

A country whose local markets are filled with carts of available goods, but where, in any city on any given day, one of those carts might explode and kill dozens. This place is a work in progress.

It is time to give the country back to its citizens, to put more pressure on its elected officials to form the government and start taking care of the people. Massive obstacles remain and, as many close to the problem have articulated, the outcome remains in doubt. History, as always, will judg the wisdom of the endeavor and the efficacy of the toil.

Now, however, the wheels are back on the bus and it's time for someone else to drive.

Exit Strategy

I have to hurry up and post this before President Obama returns from vacation and makes his big Iraq speech. It will make me look like either a prophet or an idiot. Since the pay is the same regardless, I guess it doesn't really matter.

Many of you may have read or watched news stories surrounding the departure from Iraq of the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team on the 19th of August. The event was typically billed as the departure of the last U.S. combat brigade from Iraq, which is not exactly true, and sometimes heralded as the end of the war for the U.S., which is not remotely true.

So, you may be asking yourself, what exactly does it mean? Glad you asked.

I'll start by rolling back the clock to January 2009, at which time the United States and Iraq signed an agreement establishing how the U.S. would remove troop presence from Iraq cities by July 2009 and eventually the entire country not later than December 2011. This is referred to as the Security Agreement, fondly known around here as the SA, and it has absolutely nothing to do with what happened on 19 Aug.

What happened on 19 August was the result of a political mandate of the current administration that said, enroute to the removal of all U.S. forces by the end of 2011, we will end the U.S. combat mission and reduce troop levels to not more than 50,000 by 1 September 2010. On that date, Operation Iraqi Freedom ends and Operation New Dawn begins. Those operational units remaining in Iraq as part of the 50,000 are re-designated from Combat Brigade Teams to Advise and Assist Brigades with a mission change commensurate with the name change.

Beginning on the 1st of September, these units will no longer conduct partnered operations with Iraq Security Forces as they continue to battle a persistent level of violent extremist attacks. Some U.S. troops may accompany their Iraqi counterparts on these missions as advisors, but the door-kicking and trigger-pulling is wholly relegated to the Iraqi forces.

The primary function of the remaining brigades is to continue work on improving the individual and collective skills of Iraq security forces in order to enhance their capabilities and professionalism. The U.S. brigades are also part of the larger U.S. effort of working with the government of Iraq to continue enhancing civil capacity and economic opportunity across the country.

All of that said, these U.S. units are still fully manned and fully equipped combat units that will take whatever measures necessary to protect themselves. They will still be targeted by violent extremists and there will continue to be casualties right up to the point all are gone in December 2011.

So, in the end, you might still ask what exactly it means. Militarily, a case could easily be made that the war is won. Regime change happened, new government elected (we'll skip the part about how dorked-up that is), and Iraq security forces are large and in charge. Exit US military. It was a long and bitterly painful road, but the destination is reached.

From the larger perspective of U.S. involvement in diplomatic and inter-governmental activities leading to full Iraqi sovereignty and stability, history will judge. There are a ton of problems and none made easier by the nature of Middle East ways and means. If the will of the people prevails, all will be well. If it's business as usual for the Iraqi leadership, Lord help them all.

Grumblings

Today marks the halfway point to my planned Rest and Relaxation (R&R) point of 20 December. That plan has me home for Christmas and headed back to the Big Sandbox on 3 Jan. Allow three days for travel on either end of those dates.

It remains difficult to see that far forward. A lot of the problem I attribute to the heat. I know I've been whining about it since early June, but it is beginning to suck the life right out of folks here. It is sort of the opposite of the problem folks in Alaska have, where it is cold and dark for months on end. Here it is hot and bright for months on end. I checked a number of websites to see what the average temperatures were supposed to be in Baghdad, and none of the four or five I looked at made any sense.

I'll pick one: Washington Post weather bubbas say average high temperature for August is 108. I'm telling you we can hardly wait for the day when 108 is the high. They say average low temperature for August is 75. I'm pretty sure the needle hasn't seen 75 since sometime in May. It hasn't dropped below 90 since sometime in June. But it's a dry heat! Last rainfall was at the very beginning of May. Next rainfall won't be until sometime in October. I'm certain this whole place would be better off if all 26 million or so of them just packed up and moved somewhere else.

The way government formation is going here, many of them probably feel like packing up and moving somewhere else. It is more than five full months since the elections and the winning parties have still not managed to figure out who will run what, thus no new government is yet formed. The problem remains the arrogance of two leaders, the two men whose lists (parties) finished the elections in a near tie. One is a former Prime Minister, the other the most recent Prime Minister. The system has been so manipulated that nobody can figure out how to get rid of the current guy, even though his list finished second in the voting.

The people deserve much better than this. They've been through the crucible, a particularly nasty sectarian civil war from 2005-2008 that none care to return to. At its height, from the summer of 2006 to the summer of 2007, an average of approximately 1,600 Iraqis were killed or wounded every week. Nobody is particularly excited about the prospect of seeing that again in their lifetime.

Yet they suffer nonetheless. They wanted, even voted for, an inclusive and representative government and it has so far been denied them. They had huge hopes that a national effort would be made to improve basic services and provide jobs, and none of that is happening.

In my admittedly biased opinion, Iraq has been handed a great gift: the opportunity to live freely and reclaim some of the glory that is their heritage. And they are squandering it. The greed and ambition of a few paralyzing the movement of millions, relegating hope to something as distant and tangible as a desert mirage in the relentless summer sun.

Summertime Blues

We approach mid-month August, mere weeks away from the Big Change for US Forces - Iraq. I get a new boss. My new boss gets a new boss. All of us get a new mission. New Dawn.

Who knows, maybe it gets me some extra bling -- another ribbon in addition to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Or not, no telling at this stage of the game.

Anyway, here's yet another picture of me trying to have fun without alcohol. We're getting it down to a science -- fire up the grill at 1800, ice down the alcohol-free Becks or St. Pauli Girl or Lowenbrau, bring fruit/fries/onion rings/salads from the dining facility and start burning meat. The best part is spending four hours purely BSing instead of grinding it out at the cubicle farm.

This would be a great place for Scott Adams (Dilbert) to come for new material. I thought my team had an off-week in terms of needing to provide an update to the commanding general, since we normally work from a schedule and begin assembling analysis almost two weeks out. On Saturday I'm told to brief Thursday and, oh, by the way, part of it needs to be something new and different and painful to figure out.

So we commence to apply our considerable Excel and Powerpoint skills to create multiple charts with circles and arrows and paragraphs down below explaining what all the numbers and colors and acronyms are supposed to be descriptive of. And we scour countless media stories to see who wrote what and when and what did they say and why what they said differs fom outlet to outlet because every media outlet has a unique bias. And we, in time, make some sense of this and complete the brief with a few hours to spare.

Thirty minutes prior to the brief, my boss calls me to let me know that maybe I should explain my slides carefully, since the portions of the brief in front of me turned out to be a little thin in terms of content. Meaning I had 1/2 the slides in the whole thing. So I did, and all went well and I left there thinking we would catch a break for the next week, since I was not scheduled for anything then either.

No sooner did I sit down back at my desk than I get the word: CG liked it, need even more for next week -- something that captures all of the change in Iraq over the last couple of years. Maybe twice as long a brief as this week! So, if you read this T. Ryan, the work adage remains: the more you do, the more you do.

New Dawn. I'm ready for it. Hope it Dawns cool. I think I mentioned once or twice that it is hot over here.

Goodbye, LTC Klingaman

In keeping with my sad tradition, it is time again to note the departure of a valued comrade. Randy is now back in the land of beer and Harley's, having some quality time with his wife, son and daughter.

Given the relative newness of the rest of the Assessments team, Randy was clearly The Oracle, the man with the inside knowledge, the contacts, the proven methodologies, the Plan, the whole Been There, Done That view of our world. We have much catching up to do in his absence.

He's clearly in a better place with his family, but it remains to be seen how he'll fare when he reports to a couple of shady boondoggling buddies of mine in Chrystal City. He will, at a minimum, add a touch of class to the joint.

Thanks, Randy, for all you've done for USF-I and our cause in Iraq.

What else might be new or even remotely newsworthy around here? Not much, it turns out.

I am about to begin some redecorating in my humble abode, thanks to the timely arrival of some colorful accessories provided by my sisters in response to my whining about the whole drabness of the place. I now have flower and Tiki garlands and streamers and tablecloths, pink flamingoes, brightly colored kazoos, a batch of Hawaiian print shirts, a rainbow array of plastic Tiki cups, and other stuff I haven't yet pulled out of the boxes. No mere CHU for me anymore. It's Copa CHUbana now, my own little tropical retreat, a little slice of paradise tucked in this small corner of hell.

The only other thing worth complaining about is the dreaded "duck and cover" alarms they use here to warn us residents that something bad is inbound. Or not. Or is already here. July was a regular riot of rockets, but too frequently the alarm was after the boom -- sometimes a minute or more! Whatever the device is that is supposed to track these things was apparently set to pick up nothing smaller than a Saturn V. Unnacceptable!

So they tweaked it. Now, there is not a rocket to be seen or heard and the damn thing goes off four times a day. At least one of these times will be between the hours of 0200 and 0400. And at least one will be while you are walking to another building in the middle of the day and have to run into a concrete shelter, which is not unlike a fired-up kiln as you wait it out in the 120 degree heat.

I hope they find the sweet spot soon.

Into the Darkness

For the second time in a month, I shuffled slowly through the late-evening heat after another long day, walked into my CHU hoping to cool off and check my online accounts, and had all of the power fail about three seconds after I hit the computer power button. Really takes the wind out of your sails.

This being the fourth time in threee months we've suffered this late night indignity (only the second one associated with me just walking in the door), I now have a drill to deal with this. After exhausting all known curses that might be heaped upon the electricity trolls responsible, I shut down the computer, grab the ever-handy flashlight, quickly switch to sleeping attire, put the earplugs into the iPod and lie down on the bed.

These are all meaningful, deliberate activities. The computer is rendered useless without AC power because the network card shuts down and kills Internet access. Before the screen goes dark I have to grab the flashlight, because we are talking about complete, utter, absolute darkness. Remember, I live in a metal container with a door. Have to quickly shed the long-sleeved uniform and go to shorts and t-shirt because it is still 105 degrees outside and the longer the power is out, the closer it gets to that inside. And the tunes go on because I just got out of work and need some diversion while I unwind from the day and hopefully drift off before it gets too hot.

This is sort of a dangerous time from a psychological standpoint. The music can take your mind places it shouldn't go when you're 7,000 miles from home. Make you think of places you'd prefer to be, people you'd prefer to be with, and things you'd rather be doing. It is, as I said, utterly dark. The heat rises steadily until you're soon lying in an expanding circle of your own sweat. And you're thinking to yourself, "what the hell was I thinking when I volunteered for this?"

Eventually the heat, the music, and the stillness conspire to pull you down into the early stages of sleep, all problems eased from your mind until, BAM, the power comes on and you resume cursing, this time at yourself, because even after three previous experiences you STILL haven't remembered to turn the light switch off before getting into bed. Rude awakenings. But because the metal box you live in is small, it cools off very quickly and soon enough all is well in your world again.

For those hoping to read yet another riveting adventure from your intrepid Baghdad reporter, tune in another day. Today is all about Susan Frances Larrea Miller, my bride of 30 years, and my deep and abiding love for this woman.

On July 26th, 30 years ago, we were wed at the Christ Episcopal Church on First Street in Corning, NY. That wondrous ceremony marked the culmination of my six years of hot pursuit of this beautiful, smart, funny, caring, and very much mischievous young woman. It was the luckiest day of my life and I continue to benefit greatly from it.

Sue has clearly been in it for better or for worse, and it has been my good fortune that it just seems to keep getting better and better. We had some lean years, but she was always hopeful, always supportive, and always a joy to be around regardless.

We eventually found ourselves headed down the path we remain on today, that of a military family. Twenty eight years of an interesting Army career, a career that can try the resolve of the strongest bonds. It figures prominently in our lurching around to 17 different addresses in 11 different cities and 8 different states.

As I approach the end of that career, I can never say often enough how absolutely vital her love, coaching, coaxing, cajoling, and, eventually, accepting she has been. I will repeat what I told the assembled audience at my promotion ceremony to colonel: any man that stands in the position I was on that day will call his wife one of just two things: he’ll call her the greatest human being to ever walk the earth or he’ll call her his ex-. I’m solidly in the camp of the former.

Thank you, Sue, for being there for me every day, every year. For giving birth to these two smart, attractive, and wonderful children of ours. For being my best friend and constant companion for 70% of my existence!

This being my first-ever deployment, I’m pretty sure we have reached a point in time that marks the longest we have ever been physically separated since being married. And I miss her something awful. Life without her near is too slow, too empty, too dull.

But this too shall pass and I eagerly await the day when she’ll be back in my arms and the good life resumes!

Happy Anniversary, sweetheart. I love you more than words can express.

Your hubby.

Coping

It is becoming more difficult each week to come up with anything even half-way interesting to write about, but I don't intend to let that stop me! After all, it's not like I'm getting paid to produce a quality product and there is no mandate for anyone to read it.

I'm going a little bit stir-crazy, getting a touch of cabin fever. I attribute it to the heat. It is 95 degrees when I get up in the morning and 105 when I go to bed. In between it gets hot. Too damn hot to take a walk, throw a Frisbee around, or even sit in the shade and contemplate life. And so we tend to scurry about from one air-conditioned oasis to the next, minimizing exposure to the elements and maximizing time in artificial atmospheres.

It is getting old and we still have six weeks of high summer to deal with before we can even think of a break from the heat. All physical activity is best left for the gym; unfortunately one of the two gymnasiums is closed for the entire month of July. Means I have to use the "girls gym." This is the one inside the recreation center, where the pool and basketball court is located. It has fewer options for strength training, exacerbated by its sudden overcrowding. It is also closest to where the embassy offices are, thus usually jammed with those civilians, many of whom are women.

Even when both facilities are open you're stuck with the old rat-in-a-wheel option for aerobic exercise -- meaning treadmill, elliptical trainer, or stationary bike. Not that the embassy compound is all that scenic a venue for jogging around, but for me it is considerably more distracting (I need distraction -- I hate running) having a moving landscape than staring at whatever lame graphic is scrolling on the machine.

Love it or hate it, you have to get to the gym. The ability to roam around (even if it wasn't hellishly hot) is very restricted and you quickly determine you're not burning any calories via work routines. Thus we get to a few quaint sayings about how a year-long deployment might affect you.

For civilians not burdened by the military's General Order #1, the tendency is to become a hunk, a monk, or a drunk. Meaning you'll be a gym rat, find religion, or seek enlightenment at the bottoms of liquor bottles.

For those of us constrained by prohibition, they claim you'll leave either weighing 300 or bench-pressing 300. Meaning you'll find solace either in the dining facility or the gym, both of which are first-rate.

Personally, I tend to adhere to moderation in all things. Get to the gym 4-5 days a week but don't pass up the surf and turf. And I'm not at all averse to getting a bowl of bread pudding, adding a sizeable dollop of soft-serve ice cream, bathing the whole mess in hot caramel sauce and calling it dinner.

Things are heating up. Three consecutive days topping out at 122 degrees.

Heating up in the work world as well as an increasing sense of urgency grips the US forces-Iraq staff in the face of significant looming changes.

It is summer, the season of turnover for military personnel. This is not new, given the difficulties the services would face if they were always trying to move families in the midst of any school year. What is new here in Iraq is the calculus of drawdown, the sad reality that forces you to say goodbye to a lot more people than you will be welcoming. The ranks continue to thin but nobody seems to know how to make the workload do the same. That is hard enough under normal conditions, but now we have this urgency thing going on.

GEN Odierno will soon be leaving as the commanding general of USF-I; his departure will coincide with closing out of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the beginning of Operation New Dawn. It marks the point at which the number of service members, which peaked around 170,000, must reach no more than 50,000. It officially ends planned combat operations for US troops, who will complete their transition to a train, advise, and assist role with the Iraqi security forces. Unless forced to defend themselves.

New Dawn also heralds a rather unique phase of operations for the US military -- the transition to civil authority. And there is the rub. There remains no true civil authority to accept the transition. More than four months after the national elections, the political elites remain mired in self-serving power posturing; the change so desperately hoped for by the Iraqi people now likened to a mirage induced by the baking sun across the dusty desert landscape. Ramadan looms, scarcely more than three weeks away, and failure to form the government by then will ensure that the light of New Dawn will shine on empty government seats.

And thus the urgency in the American camps. What else can possibly be done to establish conditions for continued success? Where can we help with security, economic development, or improvement of basic services? Failure is not an option. More than 4,400 American service members lost their lives in Iraq and that sacrifice weighs heavily on those now compelled to earn it. #1 on that list is the CG, GEN Odierno. He commanded an Army division, an Army Corps, and now all US forces in Iraq, spending all but about one year in country since the invasion in 2003. His son lost an arm here. Failure is not an option.

And so we sweat it out, literally and figuratively. It's going to be a bit busy over the next six weeks as we work this transition. I'd like to think things would then settle down, but I'm more inclined to believe a quote I recently heard, attributed to one of the USF-I Deputy Commanding Generals and referencing the end of combat operations: "The hard part is over. Now comes the harder part."

More from the Holiday Weekend

I provided a brief description of how things went over the fourth of July weekend, but need to expand a bit on one aspect. Being an All-American kind of holiday, the powers-that-be decided to send some All-American personalities, in this case prominent politicians. Thus we were descended upon by Senators McCain and Lieberman plus the Vice President bonus celebrity.

Now, there are a lot of good reasons for gentlemen such as these to make the long flight and spend a little time boosting troop morale and chatting up their Iraqi counterparts. The counterparts so wretchedly stuck on their ability to form the Iraq government. No telling if the delegation had any impact, but the Iraqi pols were happy to see and talk with them.

The downside of the whole business is that the bad guys were also keenly interested in the presence of these guys, but were more focused on killing them than entertaining them. Thus a few long nights as the rockets' red glare, in the guise of 107MM Katyusha rockets, burst upon the scene with wildly varying accuracy. Still, they don't have to be too close to be heard and felt. Enough booms for me for awhile. For the most part, we were all tucked all snug in our CHUs, with triple-canopy cover, but the reality of it is that the alarms are way too loud to sleep through.

By Tuesday, the memos went out that the dignitaries departed. The bad guys, foiled again, slithered off to pursue their butchery against softer targets. Calm is restored. Hopefully the Vice President will find himself too busy to return during my watch.

I did get to witness something pretty cool here last night. One of the Army majors was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Tremendous recognition of talent for any officer, but difficult to fully appreciate when all of your loved ones are 7,000 or more miles away. But this guy, in accordance with the Army ethos, opted not to give up or accept defeat. He worked with the local video-teleconference people to set up a three-way link between here, Atlanta GA, and Houston TX so his parents, his brother, and his girlfriend could be part of the ceremony.

About 20 of us squeezed into the small room, they got the remote sites on the screen, and the 2-star boss came in and said kind words and did the promotion. Worked like a charm and we left the newly-minted, no-time-in-grade lieutenant colonel locked in the room to continue his virtual visit in privacy. I always like to be part of promotions as well as reenlistments because each tends to be, in some way, a life-changing event and can be powerfully emotional.

Voting in Iraq

It is hot again. The early June heat wave turned out to be a historic anomaly, but it is now the 4th of July and it is for real.

As I walked to work late this morning (remember, if you've been following along, Sunday morning constitutes our weekend) I saw that the dining facility had fired up some huge grills and were barbecuing chicken and ribs. The first whiff instantly carried me 7,000 miles west, back to the good old U.S of A. and any of a number of Independence Day picnics. A real poignant reminder that I am a stranger in a strange land.

We did celebrate a bit in our own way. My office gathered around dinner time to eat pizza and play poker. It was a slow enough evening that we didn't bother going back to work, thus squeezing a couple of extra hours of free time into the holiday.

Independence Day is a good step-off point to talk about Iraqis forming their own government and taking control of their own destiny.

I have so far offered up just the very basics of Iraqi societal structure, and only to provide some sense of the complexity of trying to move this country toward an inclusive government, that being one whose many pieces coalesce to form the whole. It is easy to overlook some of the more obscure slices of the ethno-sectarian mix and there are a lot of them. And it seems most of them have an "extremist" segment, making it dangerous to slight them.

Back in the U.S., we are typically confronted each election with the minimal choice, two (usually sub-optimal) candidates representing each of the dominating parties. Representative government in Iraq, affectionately termed "Iraqracy," has lists instead of parties. And the election is "open list," meaning any self-identifying group can form a list, name a leader for the list, and join the fray. What everyone is aiming for is as many of the Council of Representative (COR) seats as they can muster.

They want as many seats as they can muster because the only way to truly have a role in forming the government is to have one of the most winning lists, meaning large blocks of seats in the COR. According to the Iraq constitution, the list with the most seats is given the role to form the government. And this is where it really departs from our American reality. We vote for all of the senators and congresspersons that represent us, but we also vote for our government leader, the president.

In Iraq, it is the responsibility of the list with the most seats to find a way to name the Prime Minister, the President, and the Speaker for the COR, the top governmental jobs, in that order. Seems simple enough, but it requires a majority (163 COR members) to select these positions and the leading list has only 91. And so the real fun begins.

Campaigning for representation were 86 blocs, lists, parties, and unaffiliated individuals. Just try to give equal air time to these folks on TV. Of the 86, just 14 gained sufficient votes to seat members in the COR. 90% of these seats went to just four lists, and now the leaders of those lists are locked in a long and seemingly intractable struggle to form the government.

The leading list, Iraqiya, seemed to have the upper hand by virtue of the most seats when the election results were announced. The incumbent Prime Minister, who has no intention of giving up his post (the most powerful one in the government), is not a member of the winning list. He protested the results of the election and forced a recount of the biggest district (Baghdad) and while this was going on he convinced another list to join his State of Law list.

The recount did not change the results (in fact it validated the integrity of the voting process) but now the current PM claims he has the largest winning bloc by virtue of the two lists joining. To us Americans, this is wrong on a lot of levels, but it remains unresolved here four full months after the election and it is really making the Iraqi populace a bit upset. No seated government means no new policy or regulation, both of which are critical to a lot of things that need to happen to get this country moving forward economically.

And that is where things stand, still, today (pun intended). There is more, but this is enough for now.

Another Goodbye, More Vapid Yak

I feel compelled to continue a trend for fear of hurting anyone's feelings, that plus the fact that it is simple mindless chatter that requires little thought or study on my part.

So...farewell to MAJ Martin! MAJ Martin was actually assigned to a totally different organization but through the Machiavellian skullduggery of some enterprising managers he wound up with a cubicle in our area and, unsurprisingly, some of our work as well. He is a very gifted Army analyst and we leveraged his talents to produce such feel-good products as Attacks and Deaths updates and Violence in Context briefs. A real Dr. Death. Fortunately his interests were much broader and he was a very trusted contributor to the collective brain-trust of this organization.

MAJ Martin departed here to join his wife, also MAJ Martin, at Ft. Knox KY. Unfortunately for him, she only recently arrived there, having suffered the packing in northern VA and subsequent unpacking in KY all by herself, if you discount the two very young boys she had to manage simultaneously. I'm guessing his honey-do list will be a bit larger than the norm for redeploying husbands. Army Strong!

Speaking of farewells, I attended a lovely little USF-I Hail and Farewell event Saturday evening at al Faw palace. This was for the senior officers and non-commissioned officers across all of USF-I. The organization I work for hailed just one colonel but said goodbye to eight. I hope all the replacement bubbas are in the pipeline somewhere, but the steady drawdown of US forces to reach 50,000 by the end of August does not bode well for one-for-one replacements.

Because it was the big goodbye for so many workmates, I dutifully took my nearly-new compact camera to capture some fond memories. I turned it on, the lens came about halfway out and froze, an error message flashed across the display and it turned itself off. With the lens still frozen in place. No amount of coaxing, cajoling, sweet prose or bitter invective had any noticeable effect. Turned it on and off numerous times with no different result. Removed and replaced the battery a couple of times, in vain. Finally got miffed and just put it away, hoping for some time-induced miracle (GEN Sullivan made famous the quote "hope is not a method." I will make famous the quote "but sometimes it's all you have.").

When I returned to my CHU later (yes, my wet CHU!) I took the camera back out, tried the same futile sequence of actions, and finally beat it against my night stand. The lens retracted and it's worked fine ever since. Brute force and ignorance wins another round.

And now, what you've all been waiting to hear about...the wet CHU. The Life Changing Event here in theater. The downside is visible to any who might recall pics of the first CHU I had. Same size container, but now a big chunk of it is taken up with a bathroom containing sink, toilet, and shower. I had two wall lockers, now I have one. I had two nightstands, now I have one. But it just doesn't matter. No more packing of the toiletries bag to tote back and forth for showers. No more getting ready to shower and realizing you forgot the towel. No more of the 0300 staggering outside to go to and from the toilet.

It's all self-contained now, baby. After the first two nights I discovered some serious feng shui shortcomings, largely centered on the breeze from the A/C unit hitting me in the face all night. A quick swap of the bed and wall locker positions fixed that. One of the departing colonels subsequently bequeathed to me some very desirable CHU-warming gifts. A heavy duty orthopedic mattress topper, a mattress cover and silky 400-thread count sheets, a folding chair and small table, and a guitar. The guitar was a nice plus -- I was going to order one of those little backpack guitars for here but full size and free is way better.

I am totally Hollywood now. All I have to do is figure out some way to make work go away so I can actually spend some time in it.

Iraq 101, Lesson 2

It's been a week since my last posting and I'm feeling negligent in this task.First, the good news. I was informed today that I am to be the recipient of a much-coveted wet CHU! I'll hold off from singing the full praises of this move until the transition is complete and I can provide the visual tour via some pics.

Meanwhile, I owe some deeper understanding of the Iraqi people and some insights into the craziness that is their current political challenge.

A story or two back I talked about the ethno-sectarian make-up of the country and how it is one of the defining country attributes. While all are fiercely proud to be Iraqi, their spiritual beliefs and ethnic backgrounds allow for some pretty deep obstacles to progress. And it isn't even as simple as that.

Two additional relationships define much of the populous: tribe and family. Tribal alliances date back hundreds of years to nomadic tribes roaming the area during the Ottoman Empire era. Because Ottoman influence was relatively weak in this geographic area, the various tribes became de-facto mini-states with their own laws, armies, and economic structures.

Over time the Ottoman rulers upped their influence in Iraq and established settlement and land reform policies that gradually eroded the power and influence of tribal sheikhs. The end of World War I sent the Ottoman Empire packing and, amongst all of the other geographic nightmares that emerged in its wake was Iraq, formed from three very diverse former Ottoman provinces. This became the domain of the British for most of the next 40 years and they went to some length to encourage the tribal ties and relationships in order to improve local controls across the monarchy.

This same policy served Saddam Hussein well during his reign, catering to the tribal leaders in exchange for their support of the regime greatly reduced the number of folks he felt compelled to exterminate.

And so here we are, still with strong tribal affiliations that exert a fair amount of control, in a fairly positive manner, across the country. In the absence of a well-established national system of security and rule-of-law, the sheikhs fill the void to ensure some level of responsibility of their tribe.

Strongest of all Iraqi bonds is that of family. It transcends tribe as well as sect and is the central and defining social base for most Iraqis. While extended family arrangements are not common, they do tend to remain geographically close and form a close-knit, highly social community that manages its security and subsistence affairs while defining its own values and reputation.

The family relationships are very, very strongly paternal, so all of you single Gloria Steinem types will probably want to skip the personals pages originating here.

And so, while there is plenty of evidence to show the population can be incited to rather heinous acts of ethno-sectarian violence, more recent behavior shows the willingness to revert to more traditional roles of protection and responsibility and take a longer view of bettering their lives.

With all of this admittedly non-expert assessment complete, I can move on in future installments to get at what is going on over here in terms of politics, typical Iraqi quality of life, and the vast gulf between the two.

Much Ado About Nothing

The events of the last few days inspire me to defer the continuance of my treatise on Iraq and Iraqis and instead turn your attention to a lengthy exhortation about nothing at all. My considerable experience with nattering about this nebulous realm leads me to conclude that it is more satisfying in every aspect than having to engage in such mind-numbing endeavors as research and other, more scholarly, undertakings.

First from my stream-of-consciousness discourse is the Army birthday. This past Monday, 14 June 2010, the Army turned 235 years old. If you failed to notice or properly observe this milestone, by all means run to the fridge right now, pop a cold one and offer up whatever suitable honors you deem appropriate. You'll get full credit as long as you complete this task before the next Monday rolls around. They even relaxed the hated General Order #1 and allowed us to have two beers. Cheers!

235 years seems like an awfully long time ago. Before we had Presidents. Before we had states that Presidents could campaign in. Before we had trains that could take a would-be President to a would-be state to campaign in. Before (for you younger folks) Pong was invented. It was in ancient history that George Washington roamed around the east coast with a rag-tag group of (if you ask the British) terrorists, perpetually begging the Continental Congress for more money with which to prosecute the fight for freedom (some things never change).

As daunting as it seems looking through a historical lens, I found it to be even more disconcerting after I whipped out my trusty calculator and determined that I have been in the uniform of this service for 12% of its existence. It cannot have been that long! I'm not that old! It feels more like 12% of MY existence! Damn, it's like waking up one day and realizing you've been married for 30 years, or that you have a 35-year high school reunion coming up soon. Old.

So I'm getting older. Beats the alternative.

I still have white space to fill and no desire to actually work for meaningful words, so I'll tell of a little adventure I had yesterday.

There we were, an intrepid group of staff pukes crossing the feared Red Zone to brief the Big Guy, USF-I commander GEN Odierno at Victory Base. Having traversed said zone swiftly and without incident in the relative comfort of the boss' escorted Suburban, and having successfully made our point and exited the office of the GEN without undue abuse, I and two of my fellow travelers settled in to await the ride back to the embassy complex.

As hard as it may be to believe, somehow wires got crossed, signals got mixed, and suddenly the three of us discovered that the boss left without us. This caused a brief episode of panic as we recalled having left all of our protective gear in the Suburban, without which it is not permitted to traverse, by land or air, the No Man's Land between Victory Base and the embassy. To our very limited relief were we told that they at least had the decency to remove it from the vehicle and leave it in the lobby of Al Faw palace.

So at least were then free to explore options for returning. Thanks to the very charming and able assistance of an Air Force major in Al Faw we quickly secured seats on a CH-47 helicopter, leaving late enough for us to go enjoy a leisurely dinner before heading to the airfield. As we were preparing to jump in a vehicle to catch the flight, we noticed one of the USF-I 3-star generals loading up into his Suburban to leave. We figured there was a good chance he was headed to where we wanted to be, but rather than ask we agreed that we preferred the helo ride, since none of us had previously flown in a Chinook.

I mean, what could go wrong? For starters, the stop you want on your flight gets nixed from the itinerary. The birds came in and they departed on time, but we were again left behind as they no longer saw fit to make the desired stop enroute to wherever they were destined. No big deal. There are two Blackhawks due an hour later that will get us to where we want to go, so we manifest on them. We wait in an overheated tent, reading bad books and watching fuzzy TV, and, as our roll call approaches, we learn that entire flight was cancelled.

Now we are well and truly hosed. It is 2130 at night, travel options are gone, and we need a place to sleep. Once again the kindness of others gets us a room for the night and a ride to the PX where we can pick up some toiletries. Turns out a "room" is really this mega-CHU with two bunk beds, which isn't all that bad. But the mattresses are just slightly better than a rug on a gravel floor and the pillow only marginally more appealing than a 50-lb sack of potatoes. But by now it is about 2300, and it all looks marvelously cozy to us. I'm pretty sure we were all asleep when, about 30 minutes later, another group shows up to occupy the adjoining CHU, which is actually just the other half of the same container we're in with a thin intervening wall.

Through some quirk of ironic fate, our CHU was quaintly termed "The Mardi Gras." But the party showed up next door. Lots of door slamming and loud talking, most annoyingly from some dude that could easily reprise the role of Gomer Pyle. The old fun-o-meter is registering dangerously low levels when all eventually gets quiet and we manage about four hours of sleep, at which time we quickly shave and shower and head to the appropriate parking lot to catch a Rhino run (convoy of Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected trucks) and, thankfully, finally, make it "home." Just in time to go to work.

The horrors of war. The horror.

Iraq 101, Lesson 1

Just returned from watching USA tie England in the World Cup. Some folks from the Embassy here arranged a big projection screen showing outside -- I'm guessing about 60 folks out in the heat cheering on our team. Nice diversion. Hers's a pic, though not the best.

It cooled off quite a bit this past week, down to the high 90s and low 100s from the 120-ish days the week before. Apparently what it takes to lower the temperature is good sun block. And what could possibly block the sun better than about a billion tons of dirt in the air! Sure, it makes breathing a touch difficult and leaves some rather unpleasant accumulations to be mined from your eyes and nose, but it is cooler. I provided a picture to give a sense of the problem. Unfortunately, I've been told the same thing about the dust that I was told about the heat: it will get worse. Something to look forward to, I guess.

I put off talking about politics in my last writing because my little Good CHUkeeping (or maybe Southern So-Called Living?) food article took up sufficient space. My prattling so far tonight falls short, so I guess I'll plunge into some basics of how this place works.

There is much to try to keep straight in your mind while here -- the people and relationships are more complicated than Chinese calculus. The country is somewhat like three countries pasted together with little in common but national identity. It divides along ethno-sectarian lines: the Shia predominate in the south, the Kurds in the north, and the Sunni in central Iraq/Baghdad. The Shia and Sunni are Arab, distinct ethnicity from the Kurds. The Shia are a minority in the Muslim world but the majority in Iraq, representative of the fact that Iraq is central to the global Shia community.

While they represent the majority population, the Shia have been ruled for decades by the Sunni minority, most notably under the thumb of Saddam Hussein. The Sunni have long been the ruling elite and, from a sectarian viewpoint, are more closely aligned with Arab neighbors. The Kurds are ethnically aligned with tribes in Turkey and Iran. They are a proud people who, for the most part, distanced themselves from Turkey and Iran in an attempt to have their own "home." Some of them don't play well with others, witnessed here on a regular basis in news items describing Kurdish rebels making attacks into Iran and Turkey and those countries, in turn, trying to bomb the Kurds out of existence.

That is enough of a lesson for today. It is far from scholarly so, like everything you read on the Internet, accept it in the spirit it is offered. I'll now spend a few days trying to sort out the added levels of complexity involving tribes and families, then roll it all into the current unfolding drama of Iraq's elected government.

A Pleasant Evening

I had the opportunity recently to attend a dinner function at the local home of a man I'll term simply as an Iraqi dignitary. He is a very generous man and allowed eight military guests into his abode for a truly excellent repast and an evening of intriguing political discourse. Each of these is worth additional discussion.

First, the food. If you've had discussions with folks familiar with Iraqi food I'm going to guess they were really impressed with it. I certainly am. Our host greeted us in the drive and showed us to the living room, where we were served an awesome cardamom tea. I had to look it up when I got back to the office: the cardamom is a naturally sweet seed that can be introduced to different teas, depending on your tastes, to create an extremely satisfying drink. You tea aficionados out there are probably already keen to this, but it was a welcome surprise to me.

A little chai, a little chit-chat, and we were soon ushered into the dining room. There were just ten of us to feed, but it was obvious from the first glance that there was food for at least four times that many. I have no idea what most of it was, but it was delicious. There were several varieties of kabobs, very popular here. A massive dish of stuffed peppers, several varieties. Lamb chops. Heaping bowls of a stew-like soup with lord-knows-what kind of meat still on the bone. A particularly tasty little sweet, meat-filled rice-flour puff that I really need to track down a recipe for. Two huge bowls of a chicken/rice/other stuff salad, also a bit sweet and very popular to all around the table.

We ate for some time, a bit awkwardly since there was so much food piled on the table you couldn't gracefully maneuver your silverware. I feel bad that I can't tell you what all of this fare was, but I think it would have been a bit unseemly for me to use the table time for taking notes. Guess I'd be a bust as a reporter.

After dinner, we retire back to the living room where there was a very large platter of baklava in varied sizes and shapes and a big bowl of fresh melon. We noshed on this a bit while our host was on the phone with a High Ranking Iraqi leader and were pleasantly surprised when he returned with a new box of Cuban Cohiba cigars. We lit up (in the house! -- weird how reluctant all of us Westerners were), sucked down more cardamom, and talked shop, that being the state of affairs currently facing Iraq in terms of seating their new government and choosing their next key leaders.

I say choosing because, unlike the U.S., Iraqis do not elect their Prime Minister or President. They elect the individuals who comprise the Council of Representatives and they, in turn, determine who gets the top prizes. It is too complex to attempt to tack onto this bit of drivel, thus ensuring I have a topic for another day.

Since I'm deferring on the politics topic, I'm at the end of this tale. We shook hands all around, jumped into our Suburbans and motored on back to the compound.

I'd love to tell you we pass many pleasant evenings in this fine fashion, but unfortunately the many evenings are less than pleasant and the glow of an event such as this fades quickly. Our host did, though, send us off with the remaining Cohibas, so we'll get to re-live at least a bit of the experience.