« Embed Video (UPDATED 4/12, 4/13) | Main | Embed Video: Assessment of Fallujah & Iraq, PiTT XO »

W. Thomas Smith writes about Iraq road-trips in NRO:

THE GREATEST DANGER Much of Baghdad, the wild west of Al Anbar, points north, a few places south, and all of the main supply routes are dangerous: From my vantage point in Baghdad, firefights and bombings were almost constant. Helicopters were routinely shot at, and jets were often heard screaming over the city. When the fighting was close, usually at night, the adrenaline surged. When it was distant, it devolved into something like "white noise." But the greatest direct threat to Coalition forces (military and civilian) in Iraq was - and continues to be - the highway ambush.

One U.S. soldier I spoke with, said, "one minute you might be daydreaming or watching a sandstorm on the horizon: The next second you're fighting for your life."

UPDATE: Speaking of convoy duty, the Air Force is being tapped for ground work:

CAMP BULLIS, Texas - A row of rumbling flatbed trucks and Humvees outfitted with gun turrets lurches toward a mock village of cinderblock buildings where instructors posing as insurgents wait to test the trainees' convoy protection skills.

The training range is Army, as is the duty itself - one of the most dangerous in Iraq these days. But the young men and women clad in camouflage and helmets training to run and protect convoys are not Army; they're Air Force.

They are part of a small but steady stream of Airmen being trained to do Army duty under the Army chain of command, a tangible sign the Pentagon was scouring the military to aid an Iraq force that was stretched long before President Bush ordered 21,500 additional U.S. troops there.

Posted by Bill at April 16, 2007 10:10 AM | TrackBack (0)

Comments