NBC combat correspondent Kevin Sites has just posted a new update to his blog, live from Tikrit. Excerpt:
So in some ways, embedded in this unit, I begin to feel I've betrayed the people that depend on me to be skeptical; to question the dominant powers and institutions of my nation and the actions it undertakes in the name of its citizens. I am not a military or American cheerleader, not a mouthpiece signed on some institutional agenda whether I believe in it or not. I am here to ask the hard questions of the people who make the hardest decisions; ones that result in people dying or people being killed. I must remember as one journalist advised, "write in your notepad every day 'I am not one of them.'"But in this room, where every piece of information is broken down quantitatively–number of patrols, number of raids, number of IEDs (improvised explosive devices), number of detainees, number of weapons — and put back together in the form of a task completed or a mission to be accomplished, Operation Thunder Road, Operation Ivy Cyclone, the problems and solutions seem remarkably clear an seductively simple. (…)
Image above: Al Auja is the birthplace of Saddam Hussein. The community here was very pampered during his rule. But now U.S. forces feels it's a nest of former regime loyalists and anti coalition fighters. It's wrapped the entire town in triple layered razor wire. Male residents must register and carry ID cards. There is only one checkpoint that all four-thousand residents must enter and leave through. This man was already cleared to exit, but spun his wheels in anger on the way out. A U.S. soldier had a bead on him with his M-16 before he stopped his car. The second search was bit more invasive.
Link to esssay, Link to photos
