Posted on 05/20/2007 8:46:27 AM PDT by bnelson44
Am still in Anbar and just went another day without hearing a single shot fired. Am out with a small group of Marines who live with a much larger group of Iraqis. I enjoy the Iraqi food more than the food at the dining facilities. Some of the Marines out here live in shipping containers. Their "toilet" is WAG bag. (Waste Alleviation and Gelling.) It's every bit as exciting as it sounds. Basically it's a little ziplock baggie -- one-time use only.
I was told that a chemical munition (artillery shell) was found within the last few days.
Today, went on a patrol with Iraqis and a couple of Marines and we talked with Iraqi villagers for a couple of hours. I got to talk with a man who was about 81. His hearing was not good, so I had to sit close. He said he worked for the British RAF here in about 1945-46. I asked him if the British treated him well and he said they treated him very well. Said he made the equivalent of about 25 cents per day but that was good money back then. There is, in fact, a British-Polish-Indian-Aussie-Kiwi cemetery nearby. (I visited and photographed many of the headstones some days ago.)
All the villagers we got to talk with were very friendly. Kids wanted their photos taken, that sort of thing. They were not asking for candy and that was nice. There was a train track nearby (looked to be in very good condition), and a locomotive turned over on its side, derailed. I asked a man what happened, and he said that about four years ago, during the war, an "Ali Baba" (thief) tried to steal the train but ran head-on into another train! He said the police caught the Ali Baba and he has no idea what happened after that.
Marines are getting along well with the locals. They wave a lot, and stop to talk. If the rest of Iraq looked like this, we could all come home!
MICHAEL YON sends another email about how boring things are for him in Iraq:
Boring day today, Sunday. Very quiet. But I see the news and it looks pretty bad. Did long meeting with USMC and Iraqi Police Chiefs today. Was about the most tedious meeting I've been to in Iraq -- and that means it was glacial. I hope we can make the rest of Iraq like this.
ping
Iraq needs more boring days.
The worst of all possible worlds for the Dhimmicrat Party—the surge might be working, which explains more than anything else the current attempt to defund the war.
“May Iraq live in uninteresting times...”
Musing’s on Iraq from Micheal Yon in Iraq
Anbar update
>>>I was told that a chemical munition (artillery shell) was found within the last few days.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1822157/posts
Saddam WMD: Findings and Analysis Based on Captured Iraqi Documents (Part I)
>>>I have read some Iraqis documents that give a strong hint about the possible locations where these “Chemical Weapons Precursors” can be buried and all these locations are in one particular district in the remote area of the Anbar province.<<<<
Great news.
Can you imagine if we find the WMD in Anbar! I greatly hope we do.
We found gallons of chemical precursors. Yeah but that doesn’t matter. The 500 tons of yellow cake uranium doesn’t matter either that was found. Hussein was a harmless little dungball.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1110254/posts
The ISG in my opinion failed not because they did not find damning stockpiles of precursor chemicals but because they purposely downplayed and refused to present a clear picture. There shouldn’t have been ANY civilian inspectors involved in the effort. That was the biggest mistake. Placing civilian bureaucrats in charge was why even the serious things we did find are seen as irrelevant.
Anbar province was being used as a launch point for organized groups of jihadis.
I think you and StillProud2befree contributed alot to the WOT and keeping our MIL safe. Probably more than anyone will ever say.
But, that is JMO.
Well, what happened here was a chasm between al-Qaeda and the Sunnis, which needs to happen elsewhere.
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