My civilian internet access got cut off, the contract wasn't renewed so they are trying to find a new contractor to set it up, so my blog has not been updated. The only good way to update the blog is to check into the Morale, Welfare and Recreation internet cafe and update the blog, so I write something, e-mail it to someone or myself then cut and paste. I also can't put anymore pictures in the blog until there is a new civilian internet provider. Sigh, sorry. War is hell sometimes.
Not sure if you are reading about this but the SOI members have not been paid for this month by the government of Iraq so they are getting a little out of hand. There was an SOI unit up in Bagdhad that was disbanded and arrested after they resisted their leader being arrested. In this area there have been some signs of unrest - - - some sniping at a National Police checkpoint and another IED was emplaced and went off (no casualties, but very unsettling) on one of the routes that we travel on sometimes. The IED was on a route that has had 6 IEDs emplaced on it, very close to where one of the earlier IEDs was emplaced, so there is a lot of suspicion, especially with the SOI that are supposed to be watching that area. BG Emad was furious and embarrassed, he was relieved that nobody was hurt. He offered to buy the US another HMMWV to replace the one that was destroyed by the IED.
I have no idea what the government of Iraq is thinking sometimes. There still are some sectarian/tribal shenanigans going on within the government. The ministry of interior (runs the National Police, Iraqi Police and all other internal security units) is Shia. The ministry of Defense (Iraqi Army) is Sunni for the most part, the department of Displace Civilians and Reconciliation is Sunni. There has been a lot of infighting between those organizations about the SOI. The Iraqi Army wants to disband them because they are mostly the folks they were fighting with during the bad years, the National Police wants to keep them around because they know that if you stop paying all these guys things will go wrong. Very frustrating to watch, there is so much potential here - - lots of money, water, agriculture and a population that wants to move on. The SOI pay was held up this month because the organizations couldn't agree who should pay them. One of the organizations wanted to take over paying them from the Department of Displaced Civilians and Reconciliation (DDR) (one of the Prime Minister's personal offices), there was a lot of arguing over who would pay them, in the end, they will get paid by the DDR, just 3 weeks late.
NOTE: This previous section was written a couple of days ago, yesterday (Sunday) the SOI money came through so there are a lot of happy former militia members out there. I will let you know about this month - - payday is supposed to be in two weeks . . . .
In other notes, the Humanitarian Assistance supplies that we coordinated for, took the NP up to Bagdhad to get and helped them load up were delivered to Salmon Shtup Village. We didn't go with them because we wanted to make sure it was a NP show and they got all of the credit. It was kind of funny, when we went over the pictures of the distribution from the NP there was some other US unit in some of the pictures. We are trying to find out who those guys are and ask them what the heck they were doing up there in the middle of nowhere with our unit distributing our supplies.
NOTE: We figured out who the glory-hounds were - - - a National Guard MP unit. We see them on a regular basis, they work with the Iraqi police in the area and come to some of our meetings, I am going to bust out the LT that runs the platoon and see what he was thinking.
The National Police finished off their volleyball tournament yesterday, the good guys came home with a close victory. BG Emad's Personal Security Detail team won the tournament, I took some good pics and will post them when I get a chance. The level of play was pretty good, I was impressed with both teams. The second place team was from the Narhwan (Northern City) Iraqi Police Station, they had two players that were very good, lot of good setting and spiking going on. I am glad the Personal Security Detail team won, those are the guys that surround BG Emad and run his security when we are out walking around.
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