In the Embassy

Erik and I are back in the IZ. The IZ is short for International Zone, which is what used to be galled the Green Zone. They changed the name because too many people equated “green” to mean safe. Well, with the rockets and mortars getting lobbed in here, it ain’t safe.

The day before we got here earlier this month, a rocket hit the PX parking lot. I was talking to a friend that is serving over here in the IZ and he told me a story about one of his soldiers getting shot in the gut while playing Xbox in his room. It was a stray bullet, but the incident clearly shows that this is a dangerous place whether you are inside or outside the wire.

Just yesterday morning, as we were coming in to the embassy compound, we heard a couple of distant booms. Turns out that it was a car bomb and a rocket hitting just south of the IZ. They took out another bridge. (8 left!).

Life at the embassy seems good. The security is a tight and we had to run through a gauntlet of offices and forms just to get temporary badges that would allow us to go from our hooches to the building. This is in addition to the outer ring of security just to get on the ‘embassy compound’. I suppose it makes you feels safer with all the heavy doors and guards. But Erik pointed out that we as US citizens with passports had to step aside to let the Pakistani janitors go into the building as we pleaded with a Peruvian security guard to gain entry.

We are currently working on a story about the US involvement in the Iraqi justice system. The heart of the story is the Detainees. It doesn’t seem likely that I’ll be photographing guys in yellow jumpsuits, so I’m trying to find ways to show the process without the faces, or even bodies of the detainees.

We caught a break and found out that the Iraqi judges were willing to let me shoot in a courtroom. This would have been something! But, it turns out that the day before we were to go, our PA escort told us that no US forces would be allowed to go to court due to a security threat. The alert started Sunday and is indefinite.

That was last night. We also heard back from PAO that our embed request with AF EOD was denied due to operational security concerns. Grr. I was planning on making my money with that story. I’m heading back to Camp Victory and will see if I can shake anything loose via some private channels in the head shed.