December 12, 2003
If you read one blog entry today (and I know that no one reads just one) it had better be this one. IRAQ NOW is by a soldier in Iraq who is witnessing first-hand what is going on there. He is smart, a solid leader and knows how to write.
He starts with some information about the 'Baghdad rally' that was unknown by most:
What you don’t see in the UPI story is that the demonstrations were not limited to Baghdad: there was actually a series of coordinated rallies across in cities across the country, including one scheduled from 0930 to 1200 hours at the government center here in Ar Ramadi.
He then details an incident which immediately followed the local rally:
A few minutes later, though, my RTO took a call from the civil affairs team stating that a counterdemonstration had formed, and a slogan-chanting mob of about 200 people had come from the east, and was throwing rocks at Americans and Iraqi police inside the compound. "By our lives, by our souls, we will preserve Islam!" The team was not part of our unit. I actually didn't even know they were there until they called in. They were in our area of operations, though, and the RTO told me they wanted permission to fire a warning shot.
Go read the whole thing. It is accounts like this that increase your appreciation for the military and your trust that they are and will continue to make the right decisions. Military Intelligence is not an oxymoron, at least for officer Jason Van Steenwyk.
I hate to be the guy sitting in a safe place on a radio and a room full of maps denying a request to someone in a tight spot in the field.
But on the other hand, I had to weigh the immediate needs of the guy on the ground against the broader mission: the stability of Ar Ramadi in the long term.
