REAL JOURNALISM FROM IRAQ

Michelle Malkin, recently returned from Iraq, has been posting regularly on her embed at FOB Justice. I mention this partly because she's wearing my body armor, but mostly because she's a fine journalist and her reporting is worthy of further distribution.

Malkin posted pictures from her embed here. Her first report following her return is here, and she has posted videos here, here, and here. Scroll around, as I have not linked to everything in her archives.

While I never was allowed "outside the wire," my experience mirrored that reported by Malkin. I was privileged to be there, and have never worked with a finer group of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines than I did at Camp Victory.

Other journalists who have reported from the mid-East (Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon) include Bill Roggio, Michael Yon, Michael Totten, and Bill Ardilino. Please visit their web sites and scroll around. You will not see their reports in newspapers or on television.

COMING TO IRAQ

My first official act after arriving was to go to the MNC-I (Multi-National Corps - Iraq) headquarters to sign in. Coalition Force headquarters at Al Faw Palace, near Baghdad. Apparently used by Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay for their “romantic adventures,” it is commonly called the “Perfume Palace” by the soldiers stationed at Camp Victory.






The first floor “ballroom” is dominated by the chandelier seen in this picture. Expensively appointed, the workmanship is surprisingly shoddy.
















The obligatory “Kilroy was here” picture. Almost everyone who has business in the Palace has a picture taken on the couch just inside the ballroom. I was no exception.

A CONSPIRACY THEORY I CAN LIVE WITH

Many will recall that on July 8, 1947, witnesses claimed that an unidentified object with five aliens aboard crashed onto a sheep and cattle ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico. This is a well-known incident that many say has long been covered up by the U.S. Air Force and the federal government.

However, what you may NOT know is that nine months after that historic day, the following people were born: Albert Arnold Gore Jr., Hillary Rodham, John F. Kerry, William Jefferson Clinton, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Charles E. Schumer, Barbara Boxer .... all born in March, 1948.

Makes you wonder about that "aliens among us" stuff ....

MY WINDOW ON THE WORLD

Back from Iraq and posting again. From September through December, this was the view from my quarters at Camp Victory.

The concrete barriers are "T" walls; foot-thick concrete blast barriers about 12 feet high. At the bottom is a Hesco barrier, 4 feet in diameter, about 4 feet high, and filled with sandbags. There were 2 Hesco barriers on each side of my trailer door; the passageway between the barriers and the "T" wall was only about 2 feet wide. Claustrophobic? Yes. Comforting? Yes.