A Day in Anbar, Part I

Yesterday I met the gang at 0730 to drive over to LZ (Landing Zone) Washington to get on the helo and head west to Anbar province, which, before Gen. Petraeus took command of MNF-I, was the roughest part of Iraq. It's now among the best, and so a large group of rule of law folks (military and civilian) was going out there to be briefed and make decisions about the setting up of a rule of law complex akin to the one we stood up in Rusafa this spring.


We first took two Blackhawks to Fallujah, crossing over Baghdad -- including the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (a sort of flying saucer-type monument) and the famous crossed-swords.

The city soon gave way to farmland and then desert. The austerity of the land was impressive, but certain incongruities cropped up from time to time, like the (rice?) paddies that made everyone think of movies about Vietnam.

When we landed, the marines (Anbar is the one province for which the army is not responsible) took us in a big white school bus to the briefing room on their base. Brig. Gen. Allen and his staff gave us a terrific overview of the site that had been selected in Ramadi for establishing a courthouse, detention facility, judges' quarters, and security. We discussed the logistics involved, timing issues, and, perhaps most importantly, where the money was coming from.