Like a rolling stone

Welcome back friends - did you miss me? A whole lot has happened in the last week or so but unfortunately due to really bad internet access and the fact the I've been a total vagrant living out of a sea bag I haven't been able to keep up to date around here. Sooooo let's see, where did we last leave our mighty adventurer...

Ahh yes, Camp Victory. Victory is one of several installations on the southwest side of Baghdad that make up the Victory Base Complex (VBC), which includes Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). The area is a combination of marshy wetlands, post-apocalyptic dustbowl nightmare, and man-made lakes housing palaces and summer homes once occupied by Saddam Hussein and the former regime's elite. The centerpiece of the VBC is the Al Faw palace, constructed after the Iran-Iraq war to commemorate the Iraqi army's recapture of the Al-Faw peninsula, commemorated in stunning relief below:



Along the way they apparently put on costumes and stabbed an elephant in the eye to show the Persians they're friggin crazy.


Whether it was that or the grenade tosser's exquisite form, the Iraqi's won the scuffle and today we have Al Faw Palace. Emphasis on the we. It's the headquarters of MNFI and center of almost all decision making power in Iraq. In the surrounding areas you'll find all manner of administrative offices and command centers, including the bulk of TF 134 - my command.

Following some brief general admin for all the Navy folks arriving in-country, we were escorted over to TF 134 legal headquarters to meet with the XO and recieve our job assignments. I wound up drawing just about exactly what I'd hoped for - working for the Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI) as an embedded attorney at an one of the four operational commands responsible for securing the country. I'll discuss what my job actually entails at a later date, but suffice it to say this is what I was hoping for and the only way I'd be happier with the outcome would be to have wound up doing an actual op-law job. The one bummer of the deal is that my two good buddies from NIACT are going different directions and I probably won't have a lot of contact with them. I'm up north working for the 25th Infantry Division, the jarhead is at OCI with me, but he's going west to embed with his fellow jarheads of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, and the country-ass is going to the International Zone (IZ) in downtown Baghdad to be a big shot at the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. At one point it looked like we'd all at least work for OCI, but it just wasn't meant to be.

From TF 134 legal HQ, we parted ways with the rest of the JAGs and I made my way over to OCI headquarters. Our office is located in what's left of the summer homes formerly belonging to Uday and Qusay Hussein - Saddam's ridiculously evil offspring. God knows what they did in these places before we showed up, but we bombed the bejeezus out of them and made them our own. Following Saddam's capture, we held him in a special prison cell built in Uday's house. Irony much? I didn't get to take the tour there as it's shuttered up pretty tightly for some reason, but I'll find a way in before I leave. I always do. Click this link for a view of the location and you can zoom out to check out the rest of the VBC and Baghdad.

A lot has been said about the lavish palaces and ridiculous luxury Saddam and his family lived in but I must say it really isn't all that impressive. It's got a really cheesy vibe to it... everything feels like a very 80's, Scarface, theme park imitation of luxury. Close to what they were going for but off the mark just enough that it plays more like a caricature of wealth and power. Granted my basis for comparison are things I've seen in places like Rome and Barcelona that have no equal, but still... you'd think a 30-year dictator could come up with something a little harsher than this:


To each his own I suppose. It's very cool working in those buildings though. We put an impressive amount of hurt on them - shrapnel holes EVERYWHERE and some really big dings when the bombs impacted. I don't know that anybody inside survived to make a stand, but if they did they have my respect. We caught the sons in another location some time after the invasion, but by then they weren't really concerned about their beach houses anymore. I spent a few days at OCI HQ getting the lay of the land and doing some work. Supposed to to down to CCCI for some training but that has been put off indefinitely. In the meantime I've FINALLY traveled up to my permanent home on COB Speicher, a little over 100km north of Baghdad and just above Tikrit, Saddam's hometown. More on the situation here later on. It's well past my bedtime and I'm finally working again, so I'm off for now. I have my own room (of course there's a catch, and because it's me, and this kind of thing would only happen to me, it's a big one that I won't discuss here. Some of you know - others shoot me an e-mail for explanation.) and internet here is a lot better, although it's costing me $90 a month. I suppose that's the price one pays to access the tubes from a warzone.

Final note - I was staying on Camp Liberty in the section where Monday's incident took place, but I left Baghdad earlier in the day and missed the issue completely. Please keep the families of those we lost in your thoughts and prayers.

Qusay (the nice once) used to hang out here. It's beat to hell, but it's all open inside and the rooftop balcony is a good place to smoke cigars and watch the various disturbing happenings on Route Irish, just outside the wire a few hundred meters to the north, and the rest of Baghdad.

Uday (the mean one) did his thing over there. Saddam's cell is in that house and they've got it locked up pretty tight.

The inside of Qusay's house. Notice the finger-paint mural. Keeping it classy.

This is a top-down view into the outside area of Saddam's holding cell where he exercised and grew tomatos in the wooden box at the top of the picture.


Couldn't resist the cheeseball backdrop shot.

Also couldn't help but keep it real at the pool. It's just the way I roll.

The wire, like the opposable thumb, is what separates us from the animals.