More news from Iraq: Me, the Light Brigade & John McCain
By Jane Stillwater
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com
Good grief! Iraq is just BRIMMING with news. I don’t even know where to begin. At 4 am this morning, a huge armored vehicle moved us from the Baghdad airport to the Green Zone in a convoy composed of vehicles that looked like they had just came out of a Toys R Us catalog.
Nobody in Iraq seems to need sleep. Not even me. But they don’t go without food. Did you know that the average American soldier in Iraq gains 26 pounds — while the average insurgent lives on rice and beans? If that doesn’t give our troops an edge here, then what will? If we are now entering the fourth year of this war and it still is bogged down even despite our tremendous Cheesecake advantage, the Bush guys are in big trouble. But I digress.
I’ve been here in Iraq for three days and this is the first day I have even seen — let alone talked to — an Iraqi. So I started at the top and interviewed an Iraqi general. His basic message seems to be that the Iraqi army now has about 25 new ways to kill people and/or make them go to their rooms. “We have more troops, more joint security stations, more ammunition, more tips from informants, more security….” Then his translator went on and on about how the Iraqi army is eliminating tourists. Tourists? Oh, he meant TERRORISTS. My bad.