a mobilized year

Sorry for the delay in posting everybody. I appreciate all the emails of concern for my well being.

February was a busy month for me (about 3 weeks of various kinds of missions in Iraq). On one of the missions, I had another delay. This time it was in BIAP (f/k/a Sadaam Hussein International Airport). BIAP now not only houses the Baghdad International Airport but also at least three other significant military camps: Camp Victory, Camp Striker, and Camp Liberty. I believe there are a couple of other small camps as well (such as Seitz), but the three that I named are the main ones. The camps are adjacent to one another and for the most part one can travel freely between them.

The overall area is fairly large—I’d guess somewhere between 75-100 square kilometers. It’s situated in the southwestern portion of Baghdad. Three of my crews and I spent a couple hours at the Al Faw Palace, which is what I’ll mostly elaborate on with this post.

The palace itself is built around a man-made lake that is stocked with carp. Here are post card pictures of the palace:


Around the perimeter of the lake is a path that’s roughly 2-2½ miles. There are a number of resort-type buildings there that I’m sure housed the buddies of the man who stopped his hunger strike because he got hungry (i.e., the power hungry sadistic dictator formerly known as President Hussein).

Below are some more pictures of the palace. The outside area and the front door:




Inside the door of the palace, there's a brief history of the place:


Here's one of the towers that seen better days (prior to 2003).


There are some fairly impressive bathroom facilities in this palace. Here's one of the common areas for a bathroom:

Off of the common area, there are a number of smaller "private" rooms. Here's one:

While they probably don’t rival those of certain Chinese-built facilities made for a certain former first lady, they are sure better than the porta-johns that I’ve become well acquainted with over here.

Here are some pictures of the walls, ceilings, and chandeliers:


And here’s the chair that I plan to bring back to the office with me.
Hopefully, there will be room.