Getting comfortable in Q-West

Today I attended a changeover ceremony in which an Iraq Army brigade was handed lead authority for policing the Tigris River Valley, which is where Forward Operating Base Q-West is located. It was attended by Army officers and local Iraqi mayors and sheiks. The Army considers it an important step and a symbol of America's goal of stepping back and eventually leaving as the Iraqis assume more control.

But I can't help but feel sympathy for the country. There is a sense that they're almost second-class citizens in their own country, something that is certainly symbolized by the recent sparring between the White House and Iraq's P.M. This base is shared with the Iraq Army, but I did expect to see more Iraqis running the retail shops that dot the base. I've also been told that there's wrenching poverty in the villages near Q-West. It doesn't help that this is the fourth time the country has been occupied in the last 100 years or so.

One member of the 298th told me that he's seen such things as raw sewage in the streets while out on convoys. While the infrastructure here was obviously damaged during Desert Storm and the 2003 invasion, it's also obvious that a lot was neglected under Saddam Hussein. But there were also years of sanctions, which some people say are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

During my time here, maybe as early as tomorrow, I may get to see some things for myself. I interviewed Col. Allen Raymond at the ceremony today and he invited me to spend a few hours touring some of the villages in the area and speaking to local leaders. It's really quiet up here, a stark contrast to what's happening around Baghdad.

Right now, it's raining heavily and booming thunder. The rainy season is due any time now, but I'm hoping to be gone when it starts. It rained last night into the morning, then cleared up and turned out to be a spectacular day. Soon, I'm told, it will rain nonstop into about February.

Tonight, I spent a good part of the evening talking with Spc. Charles Burke about everything. For the next few hours, I'm going to be transcribing notes for two stories I have on tape. One is a piece on the 298th and their expectations versus the reality. I also got some thoughts from them about the politics surrounding the occupation here.

Tomorrow, I'm going to talk to more soldiers about who they are, where they're from, why they joined the Army, etc. I'm also going to videotape some short messages from soldiers that we can post on the Iraq web page. The problem is, video files are really large and the connections here are not super fast, although they are faster than the satellite I have. I also heard that there's a soldier who was on the 65th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11 and might get a chance to talk to him as well as some N.Y. firefighters and police officers that I heard are here.