From:Michael Whitehead Sent:Saturday, November 1, 2003 0:05 am Subject:I got leave
Yesterday I went to Baghdad and scheduled a leave flight. I am flying from Baghdad to Qatar on Dec 20 and then will leave Qatar at 0440 on Dec 22 to fly to Frankfurt to Baltimore to arrive at 1440 the same day. I checked Delta and they have a 1730 flight to Atlanta to Tallahassee that arrives at 2130.
By my calculation, that's about 26 hours of continuous travel, assuming no plane breaks down or is otherwise delayed. I may be a little tired when I get home. I depart from Atlanta on 5 Jan at 1050, for a direct flight to Kuwait City, and then on to Baghdad the next day. That should be a lot easier trip. I am pleased with the arrangement, since I get Xmas and New Year's at home, and everyone that I want to see will also be taking time off during that period. The trip home will be fun, but going back won't be.
It's gotten cold here. Actually, I figure it was in the sixties in the morning, but with the wind blowing, the wind chill may be in the fifties. After this summer, that's frost bite weather. The clear blue skies of Iraq that were overhead for seven months are gone, and have been replaced with partly cloudy skies. They say it's going to rain soon. I'll believe when I see it because I have been in Iraq for seven months and have not seen it rain a drop. In April in Kuwait it rained some very big drops for a few minutes and then quit. It doesn't rain much in the desert.
The CPA compound is very international here, but with a different flavor that that at Babylon. You heard about the Gurkhas, but we have Pakistanis working in the mess hall cooking and serving, plus lots of Australians and Brits. We have an Australian Air Force Group Captain (equivalent of a Colonel) working here as the operations officer.
I had a nice conversation last night with two Brits. They were sitting on the wooden second floor deck that provides a stairway and walkway to the trailers they sleep in. I sleep on the first floor of these trailers. Many of the people on the compound sleep in the main building, which was a hotel for Baath party loyalists before the war. There are also some wooden floor tents like I slept in before out back for any transients. The two Brits were sitting in chairs drinking something, probably alcoholic, in paper cups. I could hardly understand the English of one of the Brits, so I asked him where he was from. Glasgow, he said. I guess he was speaking Scottish English.
Our conversation was on the dogs. I can hear a dog barking and the yapping of a litter of puppies at all hours coming from what sounds like right outside my window. The two Brits said that they are living under the trailers. In fact, later I confirmed that they are living under the trailer next to mine. The Brits said that if I report it, KBR will send someone around to "destroy" the animals. Now I will have a litter of puppies on my conscience, in addition to everything else.
In Um Qasr, the port in southern Iraq, they had a real problem with dogs’ right after the war. Packs of them roamed the docks at night and prowled into the living areas. In fact, an Iraqi kid was attacked and killed by a pack. They put some people to work shooting the dogs, but it got kind of messy, so they had to devise another method. However they are going to dispose of the dogs here, they will have to root them out from under the trailers to do it.
They Australians, and some of the Brits, are looking at the Americans enthusiasm here for football with kindly tolerance. Saturday and Sunday nights here are big football nights up in the TV room. Pro football seems to have a bigger following, which appears unusual for a Southern boy college football crazy like me. The Aussies are talking about the Rugby World Cup, which is happening now. An Aussie told me last night, in a condescending way, that the Americans even won a game this year. We're kind of like the Canadians, who also managed to win a game this year. The Canadians were able to beat Togo this time, he said with a smirk on his face. He made the American victory (I forgot who he said we beat) sound like a glorious victory over the equivalent of a Duke or a Vanderbilt. Vandy may be tough for us this year.
Michael Whitehead COL CA
From:Michael Whitehead Sent:Sunday, November 2, 2003 8:51 am Subject:I watched all the game
When I turned off the TV and went to bed it was 3 AM. I had to be up at 7 to go to Karbala. I have the beginnings of a cold, so I didn't feel particularly well when I awoke. Yet, my spirits were raised tremendously this morning by the fact the Gators were victorious. An MP and Dawg fan assigned here stayed up with me to the bitter end. I was happy and he wasn't.
We went to Karbala to look at a potential site for a new location for the CPA team that is working in the city. Right now, they are living and sleeping on a Polish Army compound. The living conditions are fairly primitive (i.e. about how I lived here for five months) and the State Department people are not happy with the situation. Furthermore, they are not happy with the security provided by the Poles on their own compound. Bitch, bitch, complain, complain, whine, whine. I e mailed one of the CPA guys in Karbala and told him that I got more complaints out of Karbala than out of the teams in the other five provinces put together. He wasn't happy with my comment.
Anyway... we are off to Karbala to see if we can solve this guy’s security problem by moving him and his team to a new site. According to reports, the Governor's former residence had been occupied by a local political party. Since it was a government building we could seize it and use it for a possible site to relocate our team. Karbala is only an hour's drive at the speed we can achieve with our U.S. made, giant Chevrolet SUV's. My buddy Jim Williams, who is the Deputy Coordinator in Karbala, and who received the above e mail complaining about the level of his complaints, met us when we arrived downtown at the Government office.
Jim didn't know where this house was, so he and I went across the hall to see the Deputy Governor to ask if he knew where it was located. Jim brought his translator. The Deputy Guv said that he knew where it was, so I led him to a map to show me. Evidently, the house was only two blocks away.
Who is in this house? I asked him through the translator. It is the offices of a political party.
Are there any guards there?
Yes.
Are they armed? (As you can see, I am gathering intelligence).
In response to this question, the translator shrugs his shoulders, and then shakes his head. "Maybe I should come along and explain to them what is happening," the translator asked.
Good idea, I said.
So we hopped in our vehicles and drove the two blocks to the Old Guv's place. It was "guarded" by a quietly unenthusiastic young Iraqi, who let us into the compound. The house was surrounded by a wall, which enclosed a compound with grass, bushes and trees (three things not usually in great abundance in Iraq).
Can you let us in the house? we asked.
Through the translator, the young man said that he would have to call the party official to get him to come and let us in.
This proved to not be a problem, for as we approached the house we discovered that part of an outer wall was missing and we could walk right in. The inside of the house looked depressingly similar to a lot of other government buildings I had seen in Iraq: ruthlessly looted and stripped down to the concrete. Windows - gone. Doors - gone. Interior ceiling - gone. One of the KBR guys with us looked up and commented, "They did leave the ductwork." Sure enough, for some reason, the air conditioning ducts were still there.
In addition to the guard, two families were squatting there. The translator said that they were poor people from Karbala. One family had five small children, including triplets (two boys and a girl). Beautiful, adorable children stared at us with wide eyes, hesitant to approach but finally overcome by their curiosity, and drawn by the relative safety of their father, who was standing and talking to us. The mother, covered head to foot in her traditional dress, stayed away from us, occasionally peeking around the corner of the building to check on us. A rooster and some chickens clucked through the grass nearby.
She had good reason to be concerned. I had a rifle, a pistol and was wearing body armor. And she had no idea who I was, other than that I was an American soldier, and she did not know why I was there. In here mind, probably, any official interest in this compound on our part could not be good news for them.
I waved and smiled at the children, and they waved and smiled back. In the back of my mind I was thinking that if we took over this compound, this family and these kids would be put in the street. Fortunately, for them, we decided not to. Jim would have to stay where he was.
Michael Whitehead COL CA
From:Michael Whitehead Sent:Thursday, November 6, 2003 8:42 am Subject:Big meeting in Baghdad
I was fortunate to be able to attend a very important meeting in Baghdad Nov 4. All the CPA provincial Governate Coordinators (the head CPA person for that province) as well as the military Division Commanders were there. Ambassador Bremer and General Sanchez were also in attendance for a good portion of the day. I was the proverbial “fly on the wall.”
To get there, I had my first experience in riding with Mr. Gefellor’s Personal Security Detail (PSD). Mr. Gefellor is the Regional Coordinator for the six provinces in the Southeast Region. Mr. Gefellor rides in an armored SUV, with two carloads of bodyguards trailing behind. I was riding in the fourth car, hanging on for dear life as we tried to keep up.
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride could not even compete with the hair-raising experience of screaming through Baghdad traffic at unimaginable speeds, making stomach churning turns and near face smashing stops. I put on my seat belt. The PSD considered this to be a contact sport, and my vehicle bumped at least one Iraqi vehicle. Iraqi pedestrians and vehicles scrambled in terror from our path as the four powerful SUV engines hurtled us through a crowded maze of vehicles and machines. Politeness and courtesy aren’t in the PSD vocabulary either. I was sick to my stomach for most of the trip, not only from being violently thrown around in the back of the vehicle, but from watching our vehicle narrowly escape a DOZEN grinding collisions.
When we got back at the end of the day, I told our Chief of Staff [Curtis Whiteford] that this was the most dangerous day that I had spent in Iraq in seven months, and an Iraqi had not even shot at me once. Never again, I told him, would I ride with that PSD. I don’t need or enjoy that kind of excitement.
The meeting was my first chance to see and hear Ambassador Bremer. He was very impressive and gave very clear directions to the assembled leadership. He made it clear that we are looking at a difficult year ahead of us. I can only imagine how some of this is going to play out in Presidential Primary politics next year.
The Multinational Division headquarters has a trailer permanently staffed with Polish media. The first Polish soldier was killed today in Karbala, and a Polish radio commentator announced over Polish radio not only that a Polish soldier had been killed, but his name. Evidently, the media in Poland stupidly broadcast this information. So, the man’s family heard about his death over the radio. Hopefully, there will be sufficient outrage about this in Poland so that the responsible journalists are crucified.
Michael Whitehead COL CA
From:Michael Whitehead Sent:Saturday, November 8, 2003 2:00 am Subject:An eventful Iraqi evening
Last night at 2130 hours I was sitting in my room watching a movie when there was a loud knock on my door. When I opened the door I found SSG Misero and SP Cavanaugh wearing body armor, Kevlar and carrying weapons.
“We’ve been ordered to armor up,” said SSG Misero.
I got dressed, grabbed my body armor, Kevlar, pistol and rifle and headed out with them to the main building.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Fifteen Iraqi trucks full of men with AK’s and RPG’s pulled up right across the canal from us,” replied SSG Misero.
“OK,” I said, trying to digest this information with the fact that the evening was still and quiet. Another day in Iraq.
The assembly point for everyone in this type of incident is the main lobby of the hotel. The lights in the building had been extinguished and the two hallways leading off from the lobby were filling up with people. Army MP’s who live with us on site were controlling the lobby. Everyone was calm, so we stood there in the dark, listening to the radios crackle. There were at least 40 people assembled, civilians wearing their helmets and body armor as well as armed soldiers like me.
The Gurkhas have responsibility for site security, and they are directed by two private contractors who were former Australian Special Forces soldiers. The plan is for them to react to the incident, and to call on our additional firepower, if required. I sat down on the floor and waited.
The Polish Quick Reaction Force in Babylon was called. We also called the Governor and the Police Chief. The Iraqi Police were there in ten minutes. Forty five minutes after they were called, when the crisis was over, the Poles called back and asked if they were still needed. So much for quick reaction.
The Iraqi police did wonderfully. Evidently, the assembly of firepower had nothing to do with us. Two local Iraqi tribes were having an argument over a woman. I guess in Iraq you carry your AK and RPG to an argument. The total was fifteen Iraqis in three vehicles, not quite the Armada that was first reported. The police arrested eleven men and confiscated three carloads of weapons. After about thirty minutes we stood down the alert.
The leadership immediately went in and did a critique of our reaction, and we all brought up some points about how we could do things better. Generally, however, our security system worked.
Mr. Gefellor invited Mr. Witwit, the Governor of Hillah, over to our headquarters this morning to thank him. We assembled the entire staff here in the hotel lobby to applaud him when he arrived. Mr. Gefellor thanked him for his actions and the actions of his police. The governor replied that he was grateful to us all for leaving our families to come free his country from Saddam Hussein and his terrible dictatorship. He also thanked us for the sacrifice of hundreds of “martyrs” by our countries, the Coalition soldiers that have died and continue to die here in Iraq. A number of Iraqi CPA employees were in the lobby when the Governor arrived, and I could tell that they were proud of what their countrymen had done.
You won’t read about this in the New York Times.
Michael Whitehead COL CA
From:Michael Whitehead Sent:Saturday, November 8, 2003 6:41 am Subject:Multinational problems - Part 1
This is my problem: I need to get a mess hall for the CPA people in Ad Diwaniyah.
All they are getting now is Tray rations for breakfast, MRE's for lunch and a semi-hot meal that is trucked in to them from An Najaf, an hour away. Greg Bates, the Acting Governance Coordinator (GC) was not happy when I visited him in Ad Diwaniyah on Wednesday, and he wasn't happy when he came to Hillah today for the Governance Coordinators meeting.
The CPA team lives on a former school compound in northern Ad Diwaniyah called Camp Santo Domingo with a battalion of Infantry from the Dominican Republic and a U.S. Military Police Company. Everyone is eating the same miserable rations. The original logistics plan was to put the dining facility (they call it here the DFAC) at Camp Santo Domingo to feed the Dominicans. Then they decided they needed a U.S. MP Company, so they put them in with the Dominicans. After that, the Poles decided there wasn't room at the logistics base in Hillah for the U.S. truck Company, so the moved them to Ad Diwaniyah. Except, Camp Santo Domingo was full so they had to put the truckers at the Spanish Camp in the Center of Town.
From the beginning, the Spanish decided they weren't going to use the all-expenses-paid life support contract the Americans were offering, and they would contract for their own food, thank you very much. So the Spanish put their own contracted mess hall on their camp, and the Americans provided through their KBR contract the life support for the Dominicans and the MP's. And the truckers. Except, the truckers are at a different camp, and since they ARE supporting the Spanish, maybe the Spanish could let the truckers eat at the Spanish mess hall. Nope - can't do it, said the Spanish. Our mess hall is operating at capacity, and we just can't feed the extra 200 U.S. truckers.
Result: the truckers are eating tray rats, MRE's and food imported from Najaf, just like the MP's and the Dominicans. The loggie guys say - look - we can't put in two mess halls for this small amount of people. We need to consolidate. So on Oct 14 (I checked my notes) we went to Diwaniyah with the KBR reps and the MND loggie reps and looked at both sites and made a decision: Move everyone from Camp Santo Domingo to a new site just south of and adjacent to the Spanish Camp. They would establish a new camp there, with a mess hall.
When do you think you could get the mess hall here? I asked the KBR guy. By the first week in December, he answered. Great, I said and moved on to other problems.
Like the Spanish communications team. Part of the deal about the move from Camp Santo Domingo was making life a little more livable there until the new camp was ready in February. KBR would rehabilitate the three story building where they were living and working. To do that, they had to move everyone into tents. Once KBR put the tents up. And when the tents went up, everyone moved out of the building and into the tent: except the Spanish communications team.
Construction on the building is to start Sunday. Contractors are lined up. I get a frantic e mail from Greg Bates, the Acting GC, who says the Spanish are holding up construction because their commo team won't move out. I put a call into the Spanish Brigade Chief of Staff, who I had met previously when the Spanish first arrived. We speak in Spanish.
ME: You're commo team is holding up our construction in Camp Santo Domingo. Spaniard: They will move out when they are provided a suitable location to move. M: We have a tent prepared for them. S: They can't move into a tent, they have to move into a building. M: But there is no building available. S: There are buildings on the compound. M: Yes, but there are MP's in those buildings. S: Move them out. M: I can't do that. Why can't the commo team move into a tent? S: Because this commo team has very specialized equipment, and they must be in a building. M: There are commo teams all over this country operating out of tents. Are you telling me that the Spanish can only operate out of buildings? S: We can't operate out of a tent.
The conversation wasn't going well. I was so angry I was shaking so I decided to bring the conversation to a close, problem unresolved. Whether in spite of or because of my phone call to the Spanish Chief of Staff they called back an hour later and said that they problem was solved.
In who's favor, I wondered?
I made an appointment to meet the Spanish Brigade Chief of Staff the following Wednesday when I went to Diwaniyah. I figured that we needed to sit down and have a nice chat about all this. Smooth some feathers.
TO BE CONTINUED
Michael Whitehead COL CA
From: Michael Whitehead Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 4:42 PM Subject: Multinational Problems - Part 2
Back to the problem of the mess hall in Ad Diwaniyah. The mess hall that was supposed to be completed in October. And now MAY not be completed by the end of the year. In addition to Tuesday, Nov 11 being Veterans Day for us, it is Remembrance Day for the Brits and Aussies and Independence Day for the Poles. Consequently, I was invited to a Polish Independence Day ceremony at the MND. The head of the Polish Army and their Prime Minister were there. The Polish Army gave us a parade and "Polish Soldier's Soup." It was good.
While I was eating the soup, I did some networking with my MND friends. The site selected for the new camp in Diwaniyah, where the new mess hall is going to be located, was having a security problem. While we were there, Iraqis were dismantling the buildings on the site brick by brick. In fact, a donkey cart of bricks went by as we stood there. The MND tasked the Spanish to post a guard there to prevent this looting and the Spanish gave this job to the Dominican battalion. Rumor had it, though (and there is a lot of misinformation here in Babil land), that the Spanish, in a fit of pique, had pulled the Dominicans off the site. The poor Spanish are always getting their honor offended somehow, which leads them to be spiteful and uncooperative.
Evidently, the Spanish were angry that no Americans (who were also going to move to the new site) were helping in securing the site. The Dominican Commander, COL Camacho, was at the party and I spoke to him. He said that his troops had been guarding the site 24/7 for two weeks. He wanted me to see about getting some kind of fighting positions prepared there for his troops. I wrote it down and said that I would work on it.
A Ukrainian officer who works for the MND logistics section asked me if I would meet them that afternoon to talk about the Diwaniyah site. I said that I would. That afternoon, I sat down with a Dutch Officer, a Romanian officer, an American officer and the Ukrainian officer. The Dutch officer was peeved that he had been gone on leave for three weeks and nothing had been done to advance this project. He said a number of un-politically correct things about several of the nations involved in this project.
I haven't worked with the Dutch before. I discovered that they put a priority on saying things in a 'frank and honest" way. It comes across to me and a lot of other people as just rude. I have discovered that rudeness in this environment destroys relationships and accomplishes very little else. A lot of the military here is working under significant political constraints. Every time the Spanish brigade gets an order from the Division, for example, their general calls Madrid to see if he should follow it. Some times nations flat refuse Division orders. This, of course, drives the Division staff crazy.
At this meeting, we squelched the rumor that the Dominicans were not guarding the site. On to getting the site prepped for the mess hall. The Romanian engineer explained his progress with getting the Thai engineer battalion to prepare the site. First he had to deal with the fact that both the Division engineer and the Division civil affairs officer believed that they owned the Thai engineer battalion. I didn't EVEN follow up on that problem. When the Romanian brought the Thai Commander to the site, the Thai Commander said that he couldn’t work there unless he had an infantry company guarding him.
The Dutch officer asked – These engineers are soldiers, right? With weapons? The Romanian nodded. We were struggling to keep the fifteen Dominican soldiers guarding the site as it was. There was no way we were going to get a company there. I brought up the known fact that the site was in the middle of the desert, 200 meters south of the existing Spanish camp, MILES from any people or roads, with unobstructed visibility to the HORIZON. And to top it off, this was Diwaniyah, and not Fallujah. I decided to tell the Thai Commander that if unarmed civilian KBR workers were going to agree to work there (which I knew they were), then the Thais ought to be able to.
I am only giving you the HIGH POINTS of the complexities of this problem. There were a lot more undercurrents which I don't have the time or the energy to explain. My CPA people would only be using a small part of this vast new camp. We would be a miniscule part of the people fed at this mess hall. But if I wanted to get this done, I had to wade into this morass of MND infighting and backbiting.
This is my proposal, I explained to the group. We are going to have a meeting of ALL the stakeholders of this project at the sight, this Friday, 1000 hours, Nov 14. I was bringing my CPA Deputy Coordinator, Greg Bates, the Dominican Commander, COL Camacho, our GLOBAL Gurkha coordinator Tim Severiano, his head Gurkha Captain Pem, the KBR project manager for all the sites here in South Central, Jamal Davis, Jamal's Security coordinator Art Medina, and the U.S. Air Force LTC Mueller, who is responsible for supervising all KBR activities south of Baghdad. I asked the MND to bring all their stakeholders: their KBR people, a rep from the U.S. Army Transportation Company people who would be living on the site, a rep from the MP's who would be living there, and the Partridge in the Pear tree. And don't forget the Thai engineer commander with his security problems.
Somehow, I got everyone to agree to be there tomorrow. Hopefully, we will achieve Critical Mass and get a Nuclear Explosion of activity and get this project moving. It is in EVERYONE'S interest that this project goes forward. Getting things done here is like trying to run an intricate machine with sand instead of oil.
Michael Whitehead Colonel, Civil Affairs From: Whitehead, Michael (USA) Sent: Friday, November 21, 2003 8:19 AM Subject: My Top Ten most Scary moments in Iraq
Today I mentally reviewed my Top Ten Most Scary moments in Iraq and discovered that they all involved automobiles and none involved gunfire. I think that is good.
Lt Alicia Galvany is on my team here in Hillah and she occasionally drives my vehicle on trips. Wednesday she drove me to Najaf. She is short, so she pulls the seat in this giant SUV up to about six inches from the steering wheel, grips the wheel with both hands, and peers over the top of the steering wheel at the traffic. We pulled out of CPA into the traffic of Al Hillah, and Alicia proceeded down the road like she was taking her Driver's Education final exam.
"Why are we driving so slow?" I asked.
"I'm a cautious driver," Alicia replied.
COL Strong, my British Army tanker colleague, sitting in the back, asked, "Have you taken the defensive driving course?"
"Yes, I have," said Alicia.
"I'm all for defensive driving," I said. "But the best way to set off the timing of the guy with the IED, or the aim of the guy with the RPG, is by driving FAST. So we need to get moving."
So we go peeling off through traffic on the way to Najaf. I am hanging on with one hand, I've got my pistol in my lap with my other hand, I'm reading my map and GPS with my third hand, and waving at Iraqis with my fourth hand. I am very busy in the front seat. To complicate matters further, I have to give Alicia VERY SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS as to where to go, because she has no idea. And she doesn't seem to mind well. Rather, I would say, she doesn't anticipate situations very well, which causes me to have to issue sudden, frantic instructions. If I had been allowed to teach [my daughter] Sara to drive (which I wasn't) this is the scenario that would have ensued, except Alicia is a Lieutenant and I am a Colonel, and Alicia was much quieter than Sara would have been. Needless to say, when we arrived in Najaf, my nerves were on edge and I had added a few more Scary Moments to my Top Ten list.
On Thursday we went back to Ad Diwaniyah and Major Harrison drove me. Possibly LT Galvany pleaded with MAJ Harrison to be relieved of this duty. When we returned to Hillah, we encountered the worst traffic jam that I had seen in Hillah since arriving here. It looked as if everyone in Hillah who had a car decided to go driving at the same point at the same time. It looked like the day after Thanksgiving at the Mall, and may have been connected with Ramadan. After fighting our way through that intersection, we arrived at another not-quite-as-crowded intersection. As I sat in traffic, I saw the Iraqi traffic police in the median, talking, arguing and laughing.
Suddenly I heard this loud voice booming in English almost right next to me, "Get out there and get this traffic moving." I turned to look and there, walking up beside my car, was a very angry U.S. Army MP Sergeant First Class, in body armor, helmet and gripping an M-16. He was pointing and yelling at the traffic police. The traffic police halted in mid-conversation, their eyes widened, and they suddenly scattered like a covey of quail into the traffic, their whistles blowing, waving and yelling at the cross traffic to halt. Then they motioned impatiently to us to begin moving. And I thought: what will happen to these Iraqi police when these Army MP's leave, which they will? Jim Williams, the Deputy Governance Coordinator for Karbala, and the friend who used to be in my Reserve unit in Pensacola with me, told me a funny story in the car on the way to Baghdad this week. Jim was sitting in his office in downtown Karbala (some people spell it Kerbala) when the local education director showed up looking very agitated. He had received a letter from an important and powerful man in one of the local political parties. Evidently, if you fail a course in the Iraqi school system, you have to make up the course by going to night school. This important man's son had failed a course, and now the boy's father said in the letter that his son was not going to night school, and if the education director tried to force the issue, there would be unpleasant repercussions. The education director asked Jim what should be done. Evidently, this kind of behavior was common in the Old Iraq, but wasn't supposed to occur in the New Iraq. Jim turned to his translator, who was reading the letter. The translator said to Jim, "This letter doesn't look like it was written by an adult, but by a child." Then Jim said, "Maybe we better call this politico and ask him if he wrote this letter."
I heard my first Iraqi joke today (that is, a joke by Iraqis as opposed to about Iraqis). Robert Ford, the Governance Coordinator for Najaf sent it to me in an e mail. A man was in a market and he saw a merchant selling brains. A British brain was going for 500,000 dinar/kilo. An American brain was going for 700,000 dinar/kilo. A Ramadi brain (Ramadi is the capital of Anbar province, and right down the road from Fallujah) was selling for 10 million dinar/kilo. The man asked the merchant, "Why is the Ramadi brain so expensive?" And the answer was, "Because they are so rare. Only one person in ten in Ramadi has a brain."
Well… I guess you got to be here.
Michael Whitehead Colonel, Civil Affairs
From: Whitehead, Michael (USA) Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 7:13 AM Subject: A flat tire on MSR Tampa
Tooling along on MSR Tampa Monday in a convoy of two vehicles, our second car called us on the radio. They said that they thought they had a flat tire. COL Bede Strong, of Her Majesty's Royal Armed Forces, was driving the car I was in. We pulled off the road, and since Bede saw that they were stopped a ways back, he put the big SUV in reverse and rolled backward along the side of the road and against the traffic in a most expeditious manner until we were back with our comrades.
"I've never done this before," commented Bede as was driving backwards down the highway. I tried not to look.
None of the Iraqis driving by even batted an eye, of course, as this kind of driving is NORMAL for Iraq. We are always seeing drivers coming at us on the wrong side of divided highways. At least we were FACING in the right direction, even if we were going backwards. The other day there was a giant traffic jam in Baghdad as too many cars were merging in an already overloaded main artery, the whole scene complicated by the ever ubiquitous donkey cart struggling in the middle of it, going AGAINST the traffic, of course.
Changing a tire on the interstate is never a lovely prospect (THANK GOD it wasn't summer) but in Iraq things are always more complicated. Unlike at home, when one pulls over to the side of the road, normally it is not necessary to post security. In Iraq, if you are not actively engaged in the tire changing process, you stand by the side of the road with a rifle and watch the traffic go by. Or, in my case, watch the steady stream of traffic travel along the dirt road directly in front of me. This dirt road connected Tampa with a small village about 150 meters from where we stood. I got out my Thuraya Satellite phone and called Operations to let them know what was going on. I discovered that you cannot use a Thuraya while wearing a Kevlar helmet. I took off my helmet and dropped it on the ground. I got through to Operations and passed them the message.
We were about 45 minutes from Hillah and an hour from darkness when we stopped. I watch the Iraqis drive by on the dirt road. Some are pulling off Tampa to go to the town. Others are leaving the town to pull on Tampa. I wave at them. They wave back. I wonder what they are thinking about me. I look over at the village. I hope no one there sees us as a target of opportunity. The longer we are here, though…
I tried to be diligent and watch my assigned sector for Bad Guys, but I couldn't help noticing that after 20 minutes the car wasn't even jacked up. I discovered that no one could find the jack.
"Look in the Owner's Manual," I shout back. "We did," was the reply. "It's in Arabic. Call Operations and ask if anyone knows where the damn jack is on these things."
Off with the helmet again. I tell Operations our problem. Silence. Then the Sergeant Major gets on the phone, and starts to tell me where to find the jack.
"We found it," comes the call from the car.
I hang up. Back to guard duty.
Meanwhile, Bede has taken charge of the difficult task of changing the tire. He finds the jack, but has a difficult time unbolting it from the frame. He finds the spare tire, but has a difficult time unbolting it from under the car. He jacks up the car, and has a difficult time getting the shredded tire off. They finally pry it off with a crow bar. The whole process is bloody difficult for Bede all the way around.
"Bloody took you long enough," I tell Bede when I climb back in the car. He isn't amused. He tells me his long, sordid story of tire-changing woe. I tell him how I battled mosquitoes standing perimeter guard.
It is now getting dark, and we are not even close to home. As we drive back, I realize that I can count on one hand the number of times in the last eight months that I have been driving in a car at night. And two of those times I was in Kuwait.
A very interesting drive. Iraqi cars with no lights. With headlights but no tail lights. With tail lights that are white instead of red, so that as we approach the car, it looks like headlights in our lane. We see an Iraqi police car, lights flashing, parked sideways in the road and alerting us to the multiple vehicle accident ahead. This is not an unusual scene in the U.S, but it is here. Hurray for the Iraqi police man. He's doing his job. He's protecting the public.
Progress. The little scene cheers us up as we roll back into Hillah. The Gurkhas are waiting for us. As we walk to dinner we hear gunfire – scattered, distant, close, and abundant. The end of Ramadan, someone says. The Iraqis are celebrating.
Michael Whitehead Colonel, Civil Affairs From: Whitehead, Michael (USA) Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2003 9:28 AM Subject: The end of Ramadan and Thanksgiving.
Ramadan ended Tuesday night according to one Najaf cleric and Monday night according to another. Evidently, Ramadan starts on the full moon and ends on the new moon. The leading cleric is supposed to make this determination. Confusion reigns because they cannot decide which cleric is the lead.
It has been overcast and rainy for two days. This has turned desert dust into desert mud. Since it seems like EVERY vehicle in Iraq either leaks or spews oil, the introduction of water on the roads has sent some of us spinning. One SUV slid into a ditch and we had to call a Humvee to winch it out.
By order of the Combined & Joint Task Force today is Thanksgiving and everyone will be served turkey, even if they are a Pole, Brit or Ukrainian and didn't ask for it. Today we will have a Continental breakfast from 0630 to 0900 and then a Holiday meal from two to 6 in the afternoon. The Packers against the Lions on TV in the evening. The Pakistani cooks have been busy smoking the turkeys.
Group Captain Wilkinson, our resident Aussie Air Force rep, said at a meeting the other night, when told CPA would have reduced activities and a holiday turkey meal, said "Oh, so we're going to follow their quaint custom." There is a lot of friendly international needling. The Group Captain is suffering from the jibes of Col Strong, of Her Majesty's 1st Royal Tank Regiment, after the Aussies lost to the Brits in the Rugby World Cup final. There was tremendous interest in this game on this compound, and people who actually saw it on television. The Aussies and Brits look with amusement at our fanatical interest in football, and only ask that they not be required to sit and watch an entire game. They will watch for a few minutes, grow bored and move on. "Too much standing around," they will say.
The Iraqis have definitely not been standing around, but have been celebrating the end of a month of fasting. There are similarities and differences between how we Americans celebrate a holiday and how the Iraqis celebrate. From my observations of Hillah, Karbala and Al Kut the last few days, the Iraqis appear to have combined our Easter and July 4th. Like Easter, there are lots of families out in their best attire, little boys in suits and ties and little girls in adorable dresses and hats. While on the 4th we use firecrackers, bottle rockets and fireworks, the Iraqis use AK's, RPG's and hand grenades. I walked to breakfast to what sounded like a gun battle, but what I knew to be the famous or infamous Iraqi "celebratory" fire.
Other Iraqis walked through the streets beating a large drum or playing a horn in a decidedly off tune non-medley rendition of something. Yet, as I stood on the roof of a building in our compound in Al Kut, inspecting the line of Texas barriers and barbed wire we had erected in the last two weeks, I could see Iraqi families promenading in the park, enjoying their holiday in peace and without fear. As we left the children ran up to us shouting, "Thank you" in English. I had never heard them say that before. We waved back.
Michael Whitehead Colonel, Civil Affairs
MICHAEL WHITEHEAD, Author & Writer Web Design: Sara Whitehead Technical Consultant: Lindsey Whitehead
