Update [2004-9-11 14:39:18 by pacific city]: Correction: I think the Green Zone is fairly secure.
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Here is an excerpt from an email sent by my husband, whose U.S. Army unit arrived in Iraq two days ago. He asked me before he left to post information he sends from Iraq, so I'm doing this with his permission and blessings.
It is very hard to describe this experience. We got fire coming in for landing, we've been mortared every night, I've heard IEDs and seen the result of one...this place is no joke. It is absolutely amazing how we went from flat out boredom...to full-tempo combat [operations] in just 12 hours. The adjustment has been strange
...Right now we're just trying to get acclimated and understand this area. It is a mess of political, civil, tribal and personal relations. There are contractors, government, military, and every other factor you can imagine impacting the projects we will be running. Nothing is easy here...There has been no easing into this.
And this is an area of Northern Iraq that is supposed to be relatively secure. Our servicemembers are in the middle of a huge mess over there. They are at risk every minute of every day and the Iraqi people have it even worse, with no security, no infrastructure and no protection.
How Bush can run on the Iraq War as a success is beyond my comprehension.