Hatchet Job

The enemy of the people of Iraq is crafty and well placed. The battalion commander of the Northern Battalion was suddenly and suprisingly transferred to a border battalion (same as being sent to Siberia in the old Soviet days). There are two schools of thought on why this happened: 1. He was not towing the political party line (each of the Ministries is basically ran by a political party here) or 2. He was too effective. Either way, he was a patriot to the people of Iraq, and in only a month on duty in the Nothern city he had made some pretty good strides with clearing operations, operations with the Coallition Forces and had made some key insurgent arrests. I suspect the reason was he was too effective and one of the insurgent leaders talked to his buddy that was planted in the ministry and had him moved out of the Northern city. The general tends to agree with me and has noted that the insurgency is not only a shooting war against an enemy that won't fight, but is now an administrative war against an enemy that is well placed in the Government of Iraq.

That was how the week started off, we found out that the battalion commander had been transferred, it was supposed to be a great week with the SOI Pay Plan finally going into effect, but it started off badly.

We went and checked out each of SOI Pay Sites and were pleasantly suprised that every thing was going as smoothly as things in Iraq go - - there were no angry mobs, no disgruntled employees and the National Police was at its best. The enemy attempted to disrupt the operation by placing an IED in front of one of the SOI Pay Sites, but a sharp-eyed National Police Lieutenant spotted the IED and called in the bomb squad to blow it in place. There are two more days of paying to go, I think everything will go smoothly.

The IED marked the third IED that has been planted in our area of operation, all three of them were planted within a few kilometers of each other in the Middle Battalions Area of Operation. This was a bad sign for the Middle battalion commander. Yesterday afternoon the general stopped by the the Middle battalion commander's headquarters and gave him a royal ass-chewing, Iraqi style. Basically he told him to get him and his men out of the headquarters and get after the insurgents: Patrol, clear, keep them off balance and out of his sector. One more IED on one of his roads and it will be bad.

I really wish that Middle battalion commander would have listened. The general went out this morning to see if his orders were being followed, and they weren't. We patrolled through the Middle Battalions area of operation, stopping at most of the checkpoints and talking to some of the Sons of Iraq. Unfortunately, we didn't see any patrols. Middle Battalion Commander got a second visit from the general, it went about the same way the first visit went. I suspect we will be checking up on Center Battalion again here soon. More to follow.

Team notes: The team is starting to catch onto something: If we are near one of the headquarters (either one of the battalions or the brigade headquarters) around mealtime, we are going to get drug into the dining hall. I picked up on this and have started to time our visits so that we won't get caught near one of the headquarters at lunch. The devious Iraqis have figured this out as well and have shifted the lunch hours around. It is funny, I will be in the general's office about 2 PM, thinking we are safe, and he will announce that it is lunch time and we should eat with him. My guys, meanwhile are hiding in the vehicles, hoping they won't get drug into the meal. The devious (and generous) Iraqis figured this out and take some of the food out to the vehicles and eat with my guys out there. Kind of funny.

This morning we got trapped in a breakfast situation. After going out on patrol we stopped by Middle Battalion Headquarters, where the general lit into that commander again. I thought we were free and clear, but even after getting chewed out by the general, Middle Battalion Commander invited us to breakfast, amazing.

Fantasy Football update: Team Wade had a huge weak, I had a whimper of a week. I hope Tony Romo is the savior, I am in serious danger of being passed by Mark.

Husker bet update: With a Husker victory over kansas, balance to the universe is returning, and I won the first of my three bets. With a Husker victory over the wildcats of kansas state this weekend, I will win the other two.

Blog note: I installed a site visitor meter, it counts how many people visit my site, I am almost up to a thousand visits since I deployed, pretty interesting statistic. If you click on the sitemeter at the very bottom of my blog, it will give you all the statistics of who visits (location,, time, duration of visit, etc.).