Dust!

Most people's experience with dust in the United States is that thin layer of dirt that covers everything after they've neglected to clean for a few weeks. Here in the middle east, "dust" means something entirely different. This is a picture that was taken at almost 10:00AM. The sky was darkened by the amount of dust in the air. This isn't the worst it's been since I've arrived in theater, however, it was still quite filthy. This brown out condition tends to happen whenever the wind picks up to high sustained speeds. Yesterday, wind speeds were over 45 knots in some areas, which brought back fond memories of Kansas. Below are two pictures that were taken while standing on the porch in front of our office.

Baath Party!!

Part of the tour I took one week ago led us through the Baath Party house. The Baath Party being the controlling party of Iraq prior to the invasion in 2003. The luxury that these people lived in, while the average person less than a mile away was living in poverty is sickening. That being said, the use of marble and the extreme lavishness that these buildings held was overwhelming. I really would have enjoyed seeing what the buildings looked like before they were destroyed by JDAMS and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The above picture is of the lobby, just as you enter the party headquarters.

The swimming pool, supposedly it was never filled with water, and was instead used for the elemination of opponents. The wall not shown has a large "stain"

Looking out from inside the lobby . . . you can almost imagine how beautiful this would have looked in its prime.

I don't have very many pictures of me on here, so I figured I would load a couple up. These were taken at the Baath Party House and the Victory Over America Palace respectively.

Victory Over America Part 1.

There are many things in life that can be classified as Ironic. Alanis Morissette even sang a song about it. In that spirit, I present to you the palace that Saddam Hussein so ironically named "Victory Over America."

The palace, from a distance, looks quite stunning. The cranes that sit around the palace give the appearance that the reconstruction of the palace is under way. In fact, when the war started in 2003, a French company was building the palace for Saddam. After the breakout of the war, the French left the country, and their equipment stayed behind.




This is on the second level of the palace, inside of the grand ballroom. to the right, just behind the column, a JDAM was dropped in, and is a major source of the destruction that you see in the room.


Looking out from the balcony. All of the water was a sign of power for Saddam. As you can imagine, in a desert, the more water you have, the more powerful you are.


A picture from the roof of the palace.


The tour of the palace was really eye opening. It's hard to imagine that a leader of a country could build this palace while the people in his country starved and fought daily for water and basic needs. In the next installment, it'll be time for a Baath Party!