Outside the Wire

I went on a little trip o n Monday "Outside the Wire," meaning off the base or outside the protective wire. I had to go to Haditha Dam for an inspection of a fence project for the Iraqi Ministry of Irrigation, Ministry of Electricity, and the Iraqi Army. The project was for an Iraqi company to install a 6 mile long security fence around the Haditha Dam area.
I have included a few photos of the trip to show some of the highlights. This is my view from the back seat. We had a private security firm provide transportation to/from the job sites. We ride in heavily armored Toyota Land cruisers. It's not quite as safe as a tactical vehicle, but we are also a much smaller target and less annoying presence to the Iraqi folks in these vehicles, and they're alot more comfortable than a tactical vehicle.

From the back seat, you can see my partner, Bob. he's an Engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers. You can see the view from inside is limited. The black circle is the little armored port hole for us to shoot out of if needed. The ballistic glass is several inches thick.

This is the view going into the Iraqi Camp Haditha. US forces recently turned over all responsibilities to the Iraqi Army and they now run this camp entirely. We waited 45 minutes to meet with the ranking officer of the camp, an Iraqi Major, because he was still sleeping when we got there at 10am. We conducted our inspection while he "gathered himself".

The whole area had a lot of men just standing around watching traffic drive by. Unemployment is very high in this region of Iraq (Al Anbar Province). Unfortunately, all this lingering around makes everyone look suspicious to us.

This was a really neat monument we passed near the Haditha area. The region is proud of their power generation at the Dam. It is nice to see civic pride every now and then, even if it is Saddam propaganda.
A view of the Haditha Dam as we approach. Nothing special here. It's a HUGE dam of about 5 miles long and about 40 meters high, but the water depth on the other side is only a few meters. Most of the pictures are taken from inside the vehicle because the security team was hyper sensative to the threat. I didn't feel threatened, but we had to stay inside the armor unless necessary to get out. It's just precaution...I know my wife appreciates it, but I didn't feel the need to stay so hunkered down. We only received a couple rounds of small arms fire the whole trip...just kidding about that last one!
Driving through the face of the dam on ground level, downstream side.
The view from afar. Even with a big shallow lake of water, it's still the desert out here.

We inspected the fence and found plenty of problems, and we met with the Major at the camp. The whole thing was not a big deal, but fun to get off the base for a while. I didn't get any pictures of the meeting only because it would be inappropriate to shoot photos while negotiating things, and also because appearing in photos with Americans can make Iraqis more of a target.
Here's a nice shot of the drive back to the base. Some one's front porch where they're skinning and butchering a cow. There were lots of houses like this where people were out front killing goats or sheep.

We stopped to check on a construction site of a school house in Baghdadi, the little town outside the base here (not to be confused with Baghdad).

A typical small roadside mosque in Baghdadi.

Houses along the road.
Sheep herding along the route. It was pretty common to see flocks of sheep running around with a little goat herder/ shepherd type of person. It was always obvious that the shepherds were very concerned about their sheep getting run over by the trucks! You could see the worry in their eyes every time we drove by a flock.

The trip ended without incident, and I will get more pictures of interesting stuff next time I go out. I'm hoping to go to the hospital project, or another school project, where I can mingle with local folks. There's a lot of good work going on here. I'm glad to be a part of it.