One of the wonders of military life in Iraq is the positioning of Headquarters, U.S. Forces Iraq, in a huge Saddam Hussein palace near the Baghdad Airport and the Abu Ghurayb area of Baghdad . The place is referred to here as Al-Faw, known also, according to Wikopedia, as the Water Palace. We bombed the place during the invasion but patched up the roof and proceeded to fill the 62 rooms with cubicles and desks and conference set-ups and all the other minutiae and accoutrements that make it homey for a 4-star general. There are 29 bathrooms, giving it pretty good party potential prior to the military crashing the scene.
The palace sits amidst a complex of what apparently were various recreational and residential buildings sprinkled around a good-sized body of water. The area was used as a hunting and fishing getaway for the Hussein clan and guests. There are scads of golden retriever-sized carp swimming around but I’m not certain anyone is actively trying to land one.
There are still some decent recreational opportunities available even with the No-Fun Allowed undercurrent of life here. I attended a unit off-site, in which we all get as far away from phones and computers as possible for as long as possible and pretend to work via some sort of conference. We slept through some Powerpoint presentations, had a little cookout on the waterside patio, smoked cigars and drove golf balls out into the water and generally wished we had more of these types of days.
Al-Faw, as part of Victory Base Complex, is only about five kilometers from the International Zone where I work but it is typically a bit of an ordeal to move back and forth. While each location is fairly secure, the stretch of road linking them is not, requiring some sort of armed convoy to make the transit. There are two options – the easy to arrange one and the good one. Easy to arrange is the Rhino convoy, but it can be tedious. For us Embassy Complex bubbas, we have to buddy-up to cross the street to Forward Operating Base Union III. Three times a day a convoy of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles forms up and hauls folks back and forth between there and Victory. Cluster around for 10-15 minutes, have a roll call, get a vehicle and convoy briefing, and move out.
These MRAPs are quite the beasts – the ultimate Tonka toys. I’ll get a picture one of these days because they really are pretty cool. But the offshoot of the Rhino run is that the 5K run consumes more than an hour of your time to execute. The alternative, and preferable, means is to link up with one of the general officer personal security detachment runs. For this I have to just walk down the street to the embassy, jump in an armored Chevy Suburban, and off we go. Armed and armored trucks fall in front a rear after leaving the Embassy Compound and, once clear of the IZ and into the Red Zone they just hit the gas and boogie 80-90 MPH over to Victory.
Regardless of which transport used, all passengers must wear Kevlar helmet and individual body armor and military must be armed. So I’m always looking for some place to ditch this stuff at Al-Faw so I can comfortably revel in the opulent surroundings. Massive chandeliers, grand staircases, untold tons of marble, and, of course, cubicles for the worker-bees. The massive Frank Frazetta Phantom Warrior sculpture is located in the three-story domed entrance, and Frankly it looks kinda puny in contrast to the structure.
That’s it for today.
The palace sits amidst a complex of what apparently were various recreational and residential buildings sprinkled around a good-sized body of water. The area was used as a hunting and fishing getaway for the Hussein clan and guests. There are scads of golden retriever-sized carp swimming around but I’m not certain anyone is actively trying to land one.
There are still some decent recreational opportunities available even with the No-Fun Allowed undercurrent of life here. I attended a unit off-site, in which we all get as far away from phones and computers as possible for as long as possible and pretend to work via some sort of conference. We slept through some Powerpoint presentations, had a little cookout on the waterside patio, smoked cigars and drove golf balls out into the water and generally wished we had more of these types of days.
Al-Faw, as part of Victory Base Complex, is only about five kilometers from the International Zone where I work but it is typically a bit of an ordeal to move back and forth. While each location is fairly secure, the stretch of road linking them is not, requiring some sort of armed convoy to make the transit. There are two options – the easy to arrange one and the good one. Easy to arrange is the Rhino convoy, but it can be tedious. For us Embassy Complex bubbas, we have to buddy-up to cross the street to Forward Operating Base Union III. Three times a day a convoy of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles forms up and hauls folks back and forth between there and Victory. Cluster around for 10-15 minutes, have a roll call, get a vehicle and convoy briefing, and move out.
These MRAPs are quite the beasts – the ultimate Tonka toys. I’ll get a picture one of these days because they really are pretty cool. But the offshoot of the Rhino run is that the 5K run consumes more than an hour of your time to execute. The alternative, and preferable, means is to link up with one of the general officer personal security detachment runs. For this I have to just walk down the street to the embassy, jump in an armored Chevy Suburban, and off we go. Armed and armored trucks fall in front a rear after leaving the Embassy Compound and, once clear of the IZ and into the Red Zone they just hit the gas and boogie 80-90 MPH over to Victory.
Regardless of which transport used, all passengers must wear Kevlar helmet and individual body armor and military must be armed. So I’m always looking for some place to ditch this stuff at Al-Faw so I can comfortably revel in the opulent surroundings. Massive chandeliers, grand staircases, untold tons of marble, and, of course, cubicles for the worker-bees. The massive Frank Frazetta Phantom Warrior sculpture is located in the three-story domed entrance, and Frankly it looks kinda puny in contrast to the structure.
That’s it for today.
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