One of our officers is deployed to Iraq, he's an NG officer in an engineering battalion, stationed just outside of Bagdhad. Just came in on leave, going back the 11th.
Brought some interesting souveneirs, a bunch of patches from Saddam's police force, patches from the in-progress police, UN trainers, and so forth.
Most interesting though was a gift set, baseball cap and T-shirt, from the gift shop at Abu Gharaib. Yes, they have a gift shop in the prison.
He says it's pretty wierd in there. Mostly being run by Iraquis now, the cell blocks tend to be segregated by family/clan groups, with the eldest patriarch present functioning as a guard.
Apparently, it's pretty damn loose; he says there's at least one murder in the prison weekly, mostly inter-family or inter-sect violence.
It's still a very dangerous place, with the violence sporadic and random.
He says one trick is to set up a mortar to fire remotely, since our return-fire radars and detectors are so good. The height of simplicity; they set up a mortar tube with the round frozen in place. When the ice melts....
Not much in the way of accuracy, but occasionally they get lucky. Evidently no lack of such weapons.
Brought some interesting souveneirs, a bunch of patches from Saddam's police force, patches from the in-progress police, UN trainers, and so forth.
Most interesting though was a gift set, baseball cap and T-shirt, from the gift shop at Abu Gharaib. Yes, they have a gift shop in the prison.
He says it's pretty wierd in there. Mostly being run by Iraquis now, the cell blocks tend to be segregated by family/clan groups, with the eldest patriarch present functioning as a guard.
Apparently, it's pretty damn loose; he says there's at least one murder in the prison weekly, mostly inter-family or inter-sect violence.
It's still a very dangerous place, with the violence sporadic and random.
He says one trick is to set up a mortar to fire remotely, since our return-fire radars and detectors are so good. The height of simplicity; they set up a mortar tube with the round frozen in place. When the ice melts....
Not much in the way of accuracy, but occasionally they get lucky. Evidently no lack of such weapons.