British Military

The new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad must be deaf, dumb and blind. He ran the United States Embassy in Iraq for two years and never noticed the U.N. was there the whole time? Now he is announcing that the U.S. welcomes the presence of the U.N. in Iraq. I attended a few meetings with the U.N. members in Iraq, and the fact is, as far as I could tell, we didn’t want anything to do with them. The Bush Administration duplicity and pretence is showing here.

If I had to use one word to describe my three year experience in Iraq, one word which could say how I feel without discounting or dismissing the good things I personally saw and experienced, that word would be DISHEARTENING.

Unlike many Americans in Iraq, my experiences there brought me close up and personal to the Iraqis and their day to day lives. I worked with them and I lived among them in the red zone of Baghdad. As the V.P. of Aviation and marketing for the Sandi Group, a DC based Iraqi-American Corporation, I live on one of the city blocks in the middle of Baghdads Red District, away from the Green Zone and the protection of U.S. Forces. Those assigned to protect me were Iraqi, mostly Kurds from the Northern region of Iraq.

Every day as I traveled throughout Baghdad in the course of my work, it was Iraqi body guards who saw to my safety. We did not have armored cars, or soldiers to accompany us, as I would have later, being appointed into a U.S. Diplomatic mission in Baghdad. I trusted my Iraqi guards and befriended them. They never betrayed that trust. On more than one occasion, while on ambush alley in Baghdad, those Iraqi guards would cover me with their own bodies to ensure my safety when snipers opened up on our cars.

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

BEING BRAVE (A true story of Iraqi people)

Being Brave is something that most of the worlds population are doing just about everyday of their lives. Some to a greater degree than others, but then, bravery is a big word with lots of room.

When I was in Iraq, in 2003, as the CPA Airport Director of Basrah International Airport there were about 400 Iraqi airport employees who officially worked on the airport. Two of those employees worked in my office.

One served as my secretary and the other as bookkeeper. They were young women in their twenties who, before our arrival, had never even seen an American, let alone worked for one. They were bright, highly educated, friendly, spoke English and their clerical skills were beyond reproach. Both were filled with enthusiasm and the desire to learn as much as they could about the new job and about the foreigners, British and American, who had come to rescue them from the clutches of Saddam Hussain.