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*** From Michael Yon's RUBS #3:

Someone from Fox News called me a few nights ago, saying Fox had to turn down a two-week embed due to security reasons. Not security reasons meaning that they might get shot or blown up, but security reasons that their gear might get stolen on base. I have written before about how, even now into the 5th year of the war in Iraq, there are still are no dedicated resources - particularly, secure places for press to live and work so that they can launch off into combat embeds - on the major bases in Baghdad. Fox News, faced with staying in tents with itinerant workers who today might be in Baghdad, and tomorrow in Calcutta or Los Angeles (with someone else's gear), turned down a two-week embed with our forces.

Yeah, that was especially a problem at the airbases while waiting to travel. There were no secure places to lock up stuff, including thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment, and I wasn't allowed to take any bags or cases into the chow hall or various other buildings. Thus, the choice became not eat in the chow hall or leave camera equipment in a tent filled with transient contractors. It was a real annoyance. I ate a lot of pringles.

*** An interesting piece by Mark Bowden:

The inside story of how the interrogators of Task Force 145 cracked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's inner circle - without resorting to torture - and hunted down al-Qaeda's man in Iraq
...
The quest for fresh intel came to rely on subtler methods. Gators worked with the battery of techniques outlined in an Army manual and taught at Fort Huachuca, such as "ego up," which involved flattery; "ego down," which meant denigrating a detainee; and various simple con games - tricking a detainee into believing you already knew something you did not, feeding him misinformation about friends or family members, and so forth. Deciding how to approach a detainee was more art than science. Talented gators wrote their own scripts for questioning, adopting whatever roles seemed most appropriate, and adjusting on the fly. They carefully avoided making offers they could not keep, but often dangled "promises" that were subtly incomplete - instead of offering to move a prisoner to a better cell, for instance, a gator might promise to "see the boss" about doing so. Sometimes the promise was kept. Fear, the most useful interrogation tool, was always present. The well-publicized abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere put all detainees on edge, and assurances that the U.S. command had cracked down were not readily believed. The prospect of being shipped to the larger prison - notorious during the American occupation, and even more so during the Saddam era - was enough to persuade many subjects to talk. This was, perhaps, the only constructive thing to result from the Abu Ghraib scandal, which otherwise remains one of the biggest setbacks of the war.

It was an exciting, challenging job, filled with a sense of urgent purpose. Most of the gators had a military background, and they found the lack of protocol liberating. As the gators had been told, rank inside the Compound was eschewed entirely. People referred to each other by their nicknames.

*** "One Muslim's decision to join the US Army:"

Abdel Salam fits that profile. At 6 foot, 1 inch, 260 pounds, with an imposing build, Abdel Salam is aware of the intimidating impact of his large presence. He hopes it can be helpful, if and when he gets sent to Iraq. And he wants to go, very badly. Unlike many of his Arab and Muslim-American neighbors who believe the US is a primary cause of the current chaos in the region, he believes that America has a responsibility to play a role as peacemaker. He's aware that's an unpopular view. But it doesn't bother him, he says, because he grew up in Egypt when Anwar Sadat put out a hand of peace to Israel. At the time Sadat was roundly condemned in the Arab world.

"They may one day call me a traitor.... I'm not going to be surprised to hear it, but I'll ignore it," says Abdel Salam. "They called Sadat a traitor, but now he's a hero. Tomorrow, I'm also going to be the peace-process person."

The article is way too heavy with John Zogby quotes, but it's a good one. The Muslim translators I met varied in skill and motivation; beyond that all liked the good to very good money they could make in the highly demanded position, one was there to serve Iraq after Saddam was gone, one "liked dangerous jobs," one was quite explicitly there to make money and one guy just loved America. An Egyptian, he and I disagreed on foreign policy and Israel, but it was touching when he choked up talking about an American soldier killed in his unit, as well as when he animatedly described the U.S. as a "land of dreams."

*** Speaking of getting choked up, this one should get you:

(Via Hot Air)

Posted by Bill at April 3, 2007 12:44 AM | TrackBack (0)

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