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.

Farewells and Such

Today our little band of slide zombies had to say adios to one of own. Goodye, Big Dan and good luck in your travels. It has been a real pleasure sharing workspace with you and enjoying the fruits of your considerable analytical talents.

Dan was an on-site agent for a large contract operation we run here. He, and a whole lot more like him, volunteer to represent their companies in locations that most prefer to leave off of their preference lists. Their services are no less vital than that of the uniformed military here and the sacrifices no less challenging. If you run across any of them in conversation, please thank them because we would have had no success here in Iraq without the huge assistance they provide.

Sadly, departures such as Dan's are far too frequent here due to the nature of assignments to a war zone. Almost all of the people working for the headquarters of USF-I are individual augmentees, meaning the military (and the contract agencies) are forever trolling to find warm bodies to fill positions anywhere from 4 months to a full year. The result is a steady and rapid turnover of personnel. There are just eight folks working in my little cell, but the nature of this assignment beast is such that every single person working here when I arrived will be gone before I leave.

And so, many are the goodbyes. I thought it bad enough just being a military careerist: moves every 1-3 years, farewells for hundreds of close companions, wives crying in driveways and doorways, fearing that goodbye was forever. Only after a couple of decades do you start to understand how small the world can be and fully appreciate that your good friends then are still your good friends 25 years later.

Still, the churn of normal miltiary comings and goings can seem bewildering, what with the ceremony of a single goodbye involving lunches and beer calls and solemn ceremonies for the beqeathing of appropriate medals, flourishes, and honors. And this in organizations where the minimum stay is typically two years.

Here the merry-go-round turns a bit faster. My little groups has a 4-month guy, some 6-monthers, and some unfortunates like me in for a year. The big downside to this is that almost every month out that I can see I have to check off another person leaving and figure out how to manage the subsequent train-up of a replacement. If one arrives.

It seems you just get to knowing someone and all of a sudden your standing out at the curb in 118 degree heat, waiting for the Armored Winnebago to come wisk them away to the better life you know awaits them. So it is, so it has been, so it will ever be in this environment.

Anyway, see you later Dan!

US Drawdown

OK -- eventually I was going to run out of clever witticisms and be forced to write something meaningful about this country I am bound to for the next 11 months (hooty-hoo, one month down!).

Fortunately, I can begin this quite easily by using someone else's words. Below you will find a most excellent article written by Mr. Anthony Shadid for the NY Times.

First, a little background. The US military is bound, by a security agreement with the government of Iraq, to exiting the country before the end of calendar year 2011. Further, it is bound by directive of the President of the United States to reduce military manpower in Iraq to not more than 50,000 by 1 September 2010. We are at around 90,000 and dropping as I write.

To get to 50,000, the US military has to turn over security responsibility of a lot of real estate to the Iraqi government. On 1 June, access control to a very significant piece of property became part of this transition. Checkpoints into the International Zone, formerly and probably forever known as the Green Zone, is now wholly provided by Iraq security forces.

While this makes for a bit of nervousness for some residents within, it is a meaningful waypoint for a country seeking to find its way out of a very dark place in its history. Read on:

Iraq's Psyche, Through a Green Zone Prism

BAGHDAD - The term was coined by the American military. But unlike some others - say, entry control points - the name managed to stick in the popular imagination. Green Zone always seemed to say so much, here and abroad. It was the imperial outpost of an occupation, or the citadel of a government never quite sovereign - bulwark or bubble, refuge or unreality. Muwafaq al-Taei, an architect and a former denizen there, thought about the description before settling on his own. "A state of mind," Mr. Taei judged it.

On Tuesday, the American military will formally withdraw from the last nine checkpoints it staffed in this disheveled stretch of territory that it demarcated after overthrowing Saddam Hussein in April 2003. The largely symbolic move is another in a year filled with them as the United States pulls out all but 50,000 troops by summer's end. "Another chapter," said Maj. Gen. Stephen Lanza, the American military spokesman.

But the changing mood about the Green Zone says something about Iraq these days, too, where the summer heat soars as high as people's frustrations. The country is still without a government nearly three months after voters went to the polls to choose one. People sweat as politicians speak (and speak and speak), and the Green Zone - so long an idea as much as a place - becomes yet another symbol in a country not quite yet a state.

"It has always been a place of someone's power," Mr. Taei said. The stretch along the Tigris has represented authority since King Ghazi sought support by speaking to his subjects from his radio station in Al Zuhour Palace, which he built there in 1936. Far more palaces are there now, though the old names have fallen away. Some still refer to the zone as Karradat Mariam, named for a local saint buried behind its concrete barricades. Fewer remember the name Legislative Neighborhood, one of its earlier incarnations.

Nearly everyone knows it by the name the Americans brought. "Welcome to the Green Zone," a sign reads, in English and Arabic translation. There remains an American texture to the place, where C.I.A. operatives once drank at their own rattan-furnished bar and young Iraqi kids with a knack for memorabilia marketed Saddam Hussein trinkets. (Watches emblazoned with his portrait were a favorite.) Empty cans of energy drinks like Wild Tiger and TNT Liquid Dynamite litter the streets. Rusted shipping containers vie for space with sand-filled barricades draped in tattered canvas. Signs are still in English; "Strictly No Stopping," the ubiquitous cement barriers read.

Green is still the preferred shorthand for the place, even in Arabic. That sometimes creates confusion since another Baghdad neighborhood bears the same name. An inevitable question often follows: "Their Green or our Green?" But as Mr. Taei noted, driving through the Green Zone on a recent day, past some of the palaces he had a hand in helping construct, "The history of Iraq is here.""Every single building has a story," he said, as symbol or otherwise. Mr. Taei pointed out where a fallen prime minister tried to elude his captors dressed as a woman in 1958. He cast a glance at the site where the remnants of the monarchy were executed a day earlier. He gestured toward the theater where Mr. Hussein, consolidating power in 1979, had the names of supposed fifth columnists read out to an assembly. The suspected conspirators were removed one by one from their seats.Through the window, he stared at the palaces - Bayraq, Salam and others - still wrecked by American bombing, then and now emblems of a government's remove. "What Saddam built," Mr. Taei said.

The Green Zone will indelibly be an American artifact of the occupation, but even today, it still bears the mark of Mr. Hussein. His initials in Arabic remain a relief on stone walls, the engraving of tiles on majestic arched entrances or the curves of wrought-iron gates. The monumental swords of the Victory Arch, gripped by hands cast from his own, are only now being taken down. The eight-sided minaret he considered his own style still stands next to a mosque built in the shapes of a child's geometry lesson.

In that, the Green Zone is perhaps another metaphor, beyond that legacy of American power. The United States managed to smash Mr. Hussein's government. But what it helped build in its place remains inchoate, littered with the ruins of the past. "The street there is dark, and only God is your guide," said a shopkeeper who gave his name as Abu Hussein, at a shop across the street from a Green Zone entrance. He meant that no one knows what goes on inside there. "They haven't heard a single complaint from the people," he said, sitting before a fan blowing hot air. "No official has paid a single iota of attention to any citizen here."

He had more complaints. So did Mr. Taei. So did most everyone along the street - from the traffic snarled by checkpoints along the Green Zone's entrances to the demands for badges, or badjat, to enter streets inside that are wide enough for a military parade. Some of the same grievances were heard in 2003, when the summer came and American officials clumsily tried to sort through blackouts, water shortages, crime and violence, all the while reminding Iraqis that they now had a semblance of freedom.

This time, the complaints were against Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and other officials residing in the Green Zone. Selfish was a typical insult; others were sharper. No one expected them to form a government soon. Smart money lately suggested it might wait till October. "If you're a neighbor of Maliki over there, then maybe you can find a job," quipped Farouk Talal, a 27-year-old employee at a cellphone store. "You won't otherwise." Down the street, Haider Kadhem called the area "another country.""We're one Iraq; you can say that the Green Zone is another Iraq," he said. "A badge is a passport, and if you don't have a passport, you can't enter that country."

By ANTHONY SHADID