Wild Week in Iraq

Last week was kind of a wild week here in Iraq, but quiet in our corner of the country. This past week (4-9 APR 09) was the anniversary of the US invasion of Sadr City, the anniversary of the death of the elder Sadr and the anniversary of the capture of Saddam Hussein. All of the car bombs that you saw going off are the way one segment of the Iraqi society has decided to commemorate those events. Nothing has happened in our little corner of Iraq, knock on wood.

There was a smaller bomb that went off south of us in another unit's sector, but nothing here yet. The area to the south of us has been a problem area: The Iraqi unit there isn't very good, the commander is very old school - - weak figurehead, doesn't engage local leaders and has no respect for the SOI and sheiks, exact opposite of BG Emad. The terrain is also as close to a forest as you are going to find in Iraq, mostly date farms, with very close trees and not a lot of roads. Insurgents can slip between the two unit's areas, cause problems in one area then just fade back into another area. We have started to work closer with the US unit that is down there, and trying to drag the Iraqi unit into some agreements on how to operate and sharing information and intelligence. We are also trying to get a combined operation or two with the Iraqi units to make it harder for the insurgents to operate.

BG Emad went on Jazza (vacation, he takes about 5 days a month), he went on Jazza the day that all of the wildness started - - 6 car bombs in Bagdhad. On that same day a National Police general was assassinated in Bagdhad which caused some concern until we knew it wasn't him. He told me that when he goes home he hangs around the house, doesn't go outside of his yard and mostly does gardening. I tease him about the Lion of the Mada'in gardening, he just chuckled. He will be back on Saturday.

While he is gone, his deputy will be running the show. Good guy, but he likes to taaaaallllllllkkkkkkkk. BG E is very cut and dry, COL A drags things out. The team hates going to meetings when COL A is running them, I have to drag them into the meetings. COL A can take a 30 minute meeting and make it last 2 or 3 hours. Very difficult to maintain focus.

There was supposed to be a million-man march (sponsored by Al-Sadr) in Bagdhad today, but it rained all morning and I don't think that Iraqis want to come out in the rain and march. CNN said they had "tens of thousands" which to me means about 16,000 people or so. I don't think that the folks around here really have the heart for that sort of stuff anymore. LATER NOTE: There were about 7,000 folks at the march, so not a real strong showing.

NCAA Tournament update: Smooth (SFC T) won the tournament, he had it locked up pretty early, and barring any upsets he was locked in on the prize.