posted on January 18th, 2011

(Photos, from top: The hole where the Tower of Babel once stood with the palace of Saddam Hussein in the background; the nearby well that is a pilgrimage site for Shia; a mural on the ceiling of Saddam’s palace; the outside of Saddam’s palace).

I wrote recently the first of 2 installments on my trip to Babylon. I’d now like to pick up the story where I left off.

After visiting the museum at Babylon, we had the option either to walk or drive to the site of the ancient Tower of Babel. Walking, of course, seemed like the more appealing choice.

As we began our walk, I quickly realized that the scope of the Babylon site was far beyond what I had imagined. This was, after all, one of the great cities of the ancient world. And for all the damage that Saddam Hussein did to the site, hastily reconstructing the city on the foundations of the ancient ruins, I found more than a modicum of hope in the idea that his project was confined to the city center, with vast tracts of unexcavated urban sprawl extending far in every direction.

In my first installment, I discussed visiting the Processional Way, a road that ran through the center of the city and the Ishtar Gate. That road, though, begins out at the Tower of Babel, and we followed it there through the Iraqi countryside. Unexcavated, the road looked more like a dry riverbed, running through the semi-arid landscape. My tour guide Abou Zayed and I wandered through brush and sand, crossing the occasional barbed wire barrier, toward where the Tower of Babel had once stood.

The Tower of Babel, of historical and Biblical fame, once stood over 90 meters tall, a stunning feat of ancient innovation. Sadly, nothing remains of it today. Alexander the Great found the structure in disrepair when he arrived at Babylon. He tore down what remained, therefore, intending to use the materials from the old tower to build a new one. Alexander died, though, before he could complete this project.

Today, the site is simply a hole in the ground, a deep pit situated on a high patch of earth. Stretching for miles in every direction are groves of palm trees, small villages nestled within them. The city of Hillah lies just a few miles away.

After taking in the site of the tower, which is still mesmerizing if the right amount of imagination is applied, I noticed a small mosque at the base of the hill on the far side. I had been warned about visiting the surrounding villages, but having operated in a security bubble for weeks, my interest was piqued by the opportunity to, at last, interact with average Iraqis.

We hustled down the hill to mosque, which was set in a shaded courtyard. Several cars were parked out front, and a handful of security personnel were on guard. After just a moment’s negotiation, I was invited inside the courtyard to look. According to the locals, this was an important pilgrimage site for the Shia. It contained a water well that had historical and religious importance. My research on the significance of the well is in contradiction to what I was told on site, and I need to reconcile the two accounts before I post more on it.

The courtyard of the mosque felt relaxed. Pilgrims, mostly women, filtered through, and the mosque administrators toured me around and showed me the well. They invited me for tea, but after a moment’s deliberation, I politely turned them down. The sun was setting, and I had one more stop on my tour.

After making the long walk back to the center of the Babylon ruins, we hopped in Abou Zayed’s car and meandered down a country road and up a man-made hill to Saddam Hussein’s palace.

Built on one of the locations historians believe could have been the site of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the wonders of the ancient world, Saddam’s palace remains an awesome, if gaudy, reminder of his rule. The hill that the palace is perched on looks artificial. The palace, which casts a shadow over the ruins, was so close to Babylon, Abou Zayed told me, that Saddam’s security team would shut the ruins down to visitors whenever the president was in residence. Fortunately, because he had so many palaces, Saddam wasn’t often there.

From the outside, the palace is imposing and made of brown sandstone. Saddam’s initials adorn the walls, as do carvings of the general leading his men. Inside, the palace has been largely looted. No furniture or appliances remain. The palace was sacked after the start of the war, used for years as the offices of a U.S. military base, and remains a popular site for visitors. Navigating around ripped out chunks of marble and plaster, we wandered through the grand entrance hall, a dining room with great views of the Euphrates, and a living room with a nationalistic mural painted on the ceiling.

Because the ceilings were so tall, they have suffered little looting and destruction. As a result, murals, chandeliers, and moldings are still in tact. Graffiti lines most of the walls, some of it by U.S. troops.

The twin arching marble stairways to the second floor were blocked by barbed wire, so we headed up a back staircase. Upstairs featured balconies, once-luxurious bathrooms, and the dictator’s bedroom.

From Saddam’s bedroom, I could see one poor farmhouse on the other side of the Euphrates. Abou Zayed told me that when Saddam was building the palace, his security forces cleared out the surrounding houses. Saddam, though, announced that he wanted neighbors and told his team to spare the one farmhouse.

Our last stop was the back deck of the house. Saddam, an avid swimmer, had pools installed in nearly every palace. This one was no exception. The mushroom shaped pool was empty of water but would have provided spectacular views for the dictator as he swam his laps.

Down the hill from the pool was a grove of palm trees, with one in particular that looked well cared for. According to Abou Zayed, Saddam had once mentioned that he liked that tree. His eager-to-please staff, therefore, built a small wall around the trunk and looked after it closely. The wall is still there today.

My visit nearly coincided with the shortest day of the year. This was unintentional. It did mean, though, that by 4:30 it was almost nighttime. Abou Zayed and I said lengthy farewells, and he invited me to join his family for dinner in Hillah next time I came to town. After that, we shook hands and loaded up the cars. Meandering through the palm-covered roads at twilight, I marveled at how much Iraq had changed since Alexander’s time. And I made a promise to myself to, one day, return to the country under better security circumstances and complete the road to Babylon on foot.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Alexander the Great, Iraq

posted on December 28th, 2010

For today, I figured I’d take a break from the narrative of my trip to Babylon and instead share some photos from my day at the site. There are so many photos I wanted to post that I’ve decided to put them on Flickr. I’ve pasted the link to the album below. You can either view it as a full screen slideshow or click photo by photo to read the captions I’ve attached.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57662766@N08/sets/72157625694399428/

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Iraq, Uncategorized

posted on December 27th, 2010

About halfway through writing this post, it became clear to me that I had too much to say on Babylon to condense it into one entry. As a result, I hope you’ll enjoy this first of two installments of my day at Babylon. Tomorrow, I’ll be posting Part 2, as well as an extensive photo essay and more of the city’s ancient history.

***

At about 6:30 in the morning on Thursday, my eyes sprung open. It was Babylon day. In truth, I hadn’t slept much that night because I was too excited to get the rest I needed. 8 months on the trail had led to a one-day shot at one of the ancient world’s most magnificent cities, a city that Alexander the Great conquered and eventually died in.

As is usual for me in situations like these, I had been too preoccupied with the logistics of the trip (and there were a lot of logistics) to really allow myself to get worried about the security situation. A man has only so much he can worry about.

As we rolled through the start and stop traffic of Baghdad, therefore, I found myself checking and rechecking all of my documents, equipment, and contact phone numbers. It was all business at that point, with none of the emotional impact of the day hitting me.

The Iraqi capital gradually gave way to old industrial yards and fields of scrap metal, towns nestled in and around them. Heading south down the Baghdad-Basra highway, suburban Baghdad turned into the classic Iraqi landscape I had long envisioned: semi-arid countryside, littered with date palms, farm fields, and small villages.

At about 10:30, 50 miles south of Baghdad, we arrived at Babylon. Getting out of the car, I was greeted by Abou Zayed, my tour guide for the day. Even though I had done as much advance work as possible, I remained concerned that authorities on-site would try to prevent my visit. I had worried for nothing, though, because after a brief stop-in at the site’s main office, I was given the blessing of the interim director and sent on my way.

The first thing to understand about the site is that much of what you see today was rebuilt by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, a fact that drives modern-day archaeologists up the wall. According to them, Saddam did not adhere to the conventions of restoration, instead hurrying to recapture the glory of ancient Babylon without regard for the original ruins.

Saddam’s method had at least two drawbacks, from what I gather. The first was aesthetic. Much of Babylon looks like a modern reconstruction, with little effort spent recapturing the spirit of the ancient city. Seeing steel beams protruding from a supposedly ancient site does take away from the authenticity. Second, Saddam did his reconstructions on top of the original walls, meaning that many pieces of the original site are no longer visible and the modern brick walls are putting tremendous pressure on the original ruins.

With that in mind, my first stop was at the amphitheater built by Alexander the Great. It was an imposing semi-circular structure, complete with an ancient courtyard for the actors and musicians in the back. Abou Zayed is from the city of Hillah, just a few kilometers from Babylon. As a result, he visited the ruins as a child, meaning he was able to recall what they looked like before Saddam’s reconstruction. According to Abou Zayed, the amphitheater used to be a mound of bricks, still vaguely resembling its ancient past. Saddam, though, made the site into a modern performance space, with numbers etched into the seats and a massive viewing booth erected for the President himself.

From the amphitheater, we proceeded to the ancient city center, passing abandoned restaurants built by Saddam. At the heart of Babylon lies a handful of palaces and temples. As I walked from one to the next, the exercise became familiar: we’d go wall by wall, and Abou Zayed would explain to me which portions were original and which were Saddam’s reconstruction. The trick, I quickly learned, was to look for the black bitumen in between the bricks. That meant they were original. If there was concrete instead of bitumen, that meant the bricks were modern. Often, there would be four or five rows of ancient bricks at ground level with Saddam’s hulking reconstruction piled stories high on top.

The magnitude of reaching Babylon finally hit me when we made it to the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way that ran along it. According to Abou Zayed, Alexander the Great would have entered the city from near the tower of Babel and followed the Processional Way through the Ishtar Gate to one of the city’s temples. Lining the tall walls of the gate were carved lions, original pieces of the ancient city. Much of this area was excavated, though not reconstructed by Saddam. It was stunning to stand in the midst of the city’s original grandeur.

Next, we made our way to a museum that had been constructed on site. Much of the museum was filled with models of Babylon and photographs of the site.

The goose bumps moment came as I entered the third room of the museum. In front of me was a portion of wall from the Ishtar Gate. This segment of wall was painted in a vibrant blue with a lion in the middle and flowers along the edges. Suddenly, all the effort I had spent imagining what Babylon would have looked like became unnecessary. There, not faded by time nor destroyed by a dictator, was one sliver of ancient Babylon as it would have been. As I raised my camera to snap a photo, though, the realities of modern Iraq reasserted themselves as the power cut off and the room plunged into darkness. I could still make out the shape of the lion in front of me, but the colors had disappeared with the power. So I switched my imagination back on and headed back out into ancient Babylon.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Iraq

posted on December 23rd, 2010

I’m just back from ancient Babylon. A successful trip, marking the culmination of this 8 month journey.

I have lots to say about the trip today, but I wanted to share the news immediately. Please enjoy the photo below (proof of visit), and I’ll post at greater length with thoughts and photos (snapped hundreds) ASAP.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Iraq

posted on December 22nd, 2010

Over the course of 8 months on the trail, I frequently ran into signs that made me laugh. Whenever possible, I snapped photos. So here, for your consideration, are a couple of the best. I’ve included explanations/context. Enjoy!

I found this anti-germ sign hanging on a bulletin board at a United Nations office in Tripoli, Lebanon.

This is an Israeli wall along the Israel-Lebanon border, pointing the ways to 2 enemy cities.

Misspellings never get old. But this photo is especially funny because I took it in the middle of nowhere on the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, where I doubt any foreigners (myself excluded) were walking through.

This sign represented Egyptian politics at their most baffling. I snapped this photo along the Suez Canal. The sign tells cars to turn right for the Qantara Bridge, Sinai, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq. Excluded from the list is Israel, the nearest foreign country down that same road. Iraq, by contrast, is many hundreds of miles and several countries away. And remember, Egypt and Israel are close allies!

See the top right heading on this Thai menu in Cairo.

Perhaps my favorite: the advertisement outside a Yemeni restaurant in Agami, an Egyptian town on the Mediterranean. A big horn sheep knee-deep in a silver chalice of rice has always been high on my list of food fantasies.

Camel crossing in the Sahara!

A donkey taxi driver takes a creative approach to naming his cart in Siwa Oasis, Egypt.

A stern warning from the Sisters at the Mar Thecla Monastery in Syria.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Top Signs

posted on December 21st, 2010

(Photos, from the top: A fleet of 5 Iraqi helicopters lifts off from the International Zone in Baghdad; Me with my new friend Haidar, from Karbala, in front of the iconic Hands of Victory monument in Baghdad; A photo of my desk in the modern, well-furnished trailer I lived in at COB Delta; the convoy of armored vehicles that took us to the Iran-Iraq border crossing)

A reader noted, correctly I think, that my embed with the U.S. military in Iraq could not have represented a greater departure from the work I’ve been doing over the course of my trek through the Middle East.

This project has centered on making a direct connection with the people of the Middle East—living, eating, and sleeping among them for months at a time. Traveling to Iraq, though, placed me directly in the middle of the military bubble, creating a barrier, both literal and figurative, between the Iraqi people and me.

While I became acutely aware of the bubble after only a couple of hours on the ground, it actually never bothered me. This journey has been all about following Alexander the Great’s route in a modern context. I’ve had to deal with closed borders, gun-toting militias, and traffic-clogged highways—all challenges that never confronted the man from Macedonia. In that vein, visiting Iraq with the U.S. military gave a appropriately current perspective on the land that Alexander coveted, conquered, and ruled.

Equally fascinating was watching the U.S. military grapple with the bubble. Even as I struggled with the obvious barrier as an observer, the soldiers were dealing with it in the context of a mission that requires them to overcome it. “Advise and Assist,” which is the slogan of Operation New Dawn, necessarily means connecting with Iraqis.

For very good reason, the military enforces a strict system aimed at protecting the soldiers, who continue to come under frequent fire from the enemy. That system, though, creates distance between the two sides. The heavily armored Humvees have windows so small and so armored that I doubt Iraqi kids see when the soldiers wave back. (Again, no question here over the necessity of the armor). Vehicles are typically required to travel in, at the least, convoys of three, with gunners standing in each vehicle. They make for an intimidating presence on the road.

Even where I was in Wasit Province, not one of Iraq’s most dangerous, the decision to dismount from the vehicles outside the base is taken very seriously. Just two weeks ago, a soldier in the squadron I was embedding with was killed in Wasit by sniper fire while outside his vehicle in a town. Rocket fire continues to pound COB Delta roughly every other week.

Despite the continued violence and the measures put in place to protect the soldiers from it, the troops continue to work through the security concerns to maintain direct access with the Iraqi people, an effort I admired because the trek had put the issue at the front of my mind too.

One day, I visited an Iran-Iraq border crossing, the busiest of several along the hundreds of miles of border. I rode up there with the platoon directly responsible for advising the Iraqi border staff. When we parked the Humvees, I was surprised to see the soldiers pulling off their body armor. Platoon leader 1st Lieutenant Sean Fraser explained that it was important for the Iraqis to see his platoon’s mission at the border as removed from any combat operations.

I toured the terminal with several from the platoon, weaving in and out of the Iranian and Iraqi crowds, watching as the soldiers interacted comfortably with Iraqi border officials, tossing in the stray Arabic word to help bridge the cultural gap.

On the day I left COB Delta, Lieutenant Colonel Keith Dunkel, who commands the Stability Transition Team (STT) for Wasit Province, was scheduled to meet with fishmongers from the provincial capital of al Kut to discuss relocating the fish market.

I watched for more than half an hour as Colonel Brian Mullins, who commands the 3rd Armored Cavalry’s 2nd Squadron, and company commander Captain Gavin Schwan negotiated with an Iraqi army lieutenant about getting a demining team to the border area to help a family remove 4 landmines from their farm fields. The mines were a remnant of the Iran-Iraq war.

Even in my brief time visiting Wasit, it was fascinating to see “advise and assist” in action, watching as U.S. soldiers tried to overcome the still precarious security situation to connect directly with the Iraqis and advise them on everything from one family’s landmine woes to the challenges of managing a busy border crossing.

One day, if U.S. forces and their Iraqi counterparts continue to make progress, I look forward to returning to a more secure Iraq, breaking out of the military bubble, and completing my journey on foot, as I had always intended to.

***

Last week I wrote about how my trip to Babylon was put on hold because of immigration issues and broken badge machines.

After days of banging my head against the wall, I learned that the only way to solve my problem was to return to Kuwait and fly back to Baghdad commercially, rather than with the military, to get the much-needed Iraqi stamp in my passport.

It’s Tuesday night here now, and I’m preparing to set off for the airport next hour. I’ll fly from Kuwait to Baghdad and spend the rest of Wednesday in the Iraqi capital tackling the desk job portion of my job. Then, on Thursday, if all goes well (and I have several letters of permission from different government agencies saying it will), I’ll conclude my journey by passing through the gates of Babylon.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Iraq

posted on December 17th, 2010

There was a point on Wednesday that I thought my entire trip to Iraq had fallen apart.

My trip to Babylon, as I’ve already written, had been postponed at the last second, and sorting out the logistics for the rescheduled visit was proving nearly impossible. On top of that, my trip to Babylon was meant to conclude with the security team dropping me off at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Kalsu (near the ruins) for the start of my military embed. Because my Babylon trip was cancelled, I instead needed to find military transport down to Kalsu. The drawdown of U.S. troops, though, meant that the number of helicopters zooming around the country, ferrying guys like me, was greatly diminished.

After a couple of days of waiting at the International Zone, the public affairs officers got me manifested on a series of 3 flights that would land me at FOB Delta, in Wasit province, which was supposed to be my next stop after Kalsu anyways.

Of course, even though it seemed like I’d get to my embed after all, the weather gods intervened.

It had poured rain on Sunday night. A few Iraqis reported later that it had actually hailed on the other side of the river. Since then, the air had been thick, weather clouds mixing with the smoke from the seasonal Iraqi field burn offs to make the air exceptionally hazy.

When I arrived at the helicopter landing zone on Wednesday morning, I was told by an affable employee that no regularly scheduled flights had taken off in 48 hours. The news landed like a punch to the chest. No Babylon. No embed. A devastating ending to what’s been a wonderful 8-month project.

I determined to wait and pray that the helicopters would resume their flights. I’d sit there all day if I had to.

At about 11am, 3 hours after I had arrived at the landing zone, the report came in: the Chinook helicopter had lifted off and was on its way.

Several minutes later, another call came in: the chopper had circled for a few minutes and set promptly back down after the air quality was deemed still unacceptable.

I continued to wait.

Just before 1pm, the landing zone manager ran breathlessly into the waiting area. There were a pair of Black Hawks approaching, he told me, on their way to drop several UN employees at a meeting in Diyala Province. After the stop, the choppers would be returning to FOB Taji, the second of my three stops. They’d take me along, but I had a minute to get ready. Even as he spoke, I could already hear the helicopters approaching.

I slammed my computer shut, threw my body armor on, and sprinted to the landing area, just in time to trot out to my ride.

Unlike the Chinook helicopters and the C-130 planes (the other two forms of military air transport I had taken), the Black Hawks offer superb views through tall windows. And the rides are thrilling.

Lifting off from Baghdad, we zoomed over the low-rise, monochromatically brown city. For a town of several million, Baghdad seems to stretch on forever, fanning out from the banks of the Tigris River. We followed the river and a nearby highway north, and just I began to wonder if the city would ever end, it gave way to vast tracts of farmland, the population all but disappearing. For more than half an hour, we cruised over muddy farm fields, which eventually transformed into the sandier landscape of Diyala.

At one point, our Black Hawk launched a burst of flares. My heart leapt into my throat. The flares automatically deploy in order to deter an attack on the helicopter, but I’d learn later that any number of factors can cause them to launch.

After a touchdown in Diyala, we turned back towards Taji, just north of Baghdad. And another half hour later, we had arrived.

The flights out of Taji seemed to be running on time, and I was quickly sent on my way to FOB Delta aboard a Chinook helicopter.

The ride into Delta gave me a good sense of its setting. Delta is the main U.S. base in Wasit Province, southeast of Baghdad and bordering Iran. Wasit is largely rural, poor, and Shiite. It continues to see some measure of violence, though the fighting here pales in comparison to that of Mosul or Baghdad, for example. Because it’s a Shiite province, al Qaeda has little or no presence here. Trouble, when it does arise, comes in the form of the Mahdi Army.

The capital of Wasit is al Kut, a city of about 350 thousand people, just on the other side of the Tigris from FOB Delta.

Delta itself is enormous because it used to serve as an Iraqi air force base before the war. Stationed here, and my host for the embed, is the 2nd squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

More on night patrols, border bases, and reconstruction efforts in my next posts.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Iraq

posted on December 14th, 2010

By this time yesterday, I was meant to have completed my mission. I was supposed to spend the day touring the ruins of Babylon, the city that Alexander the Great took in triumph and died in several years later.

It wasn’t meant to be.

As I keep telling myself, Babylon has been around for many thousands of years, so it will stick around for a few more days.

Because I flew into Iraq with the US military, I didn’t need a visa to access the country. In order to visit Babylon without the military, though, I had a private security firm line up visa paperwork (which they did) so that I’d be allowed to leave the International Zone without the U.S. government. But a breakdown in a military badge making machine and an ornery immigration officer at the Baghdad airport conspired to foil best laid plans.

Of course, I’m condensing hours of phone calls, emails, and head banging into a short paragraph, but despite the best efforts of the security team (which has been operating in Iraq for years and has lots of connections in the country), the plan fell apart.

So as if I intended to string you along for several more days, I will be departing on a 4-day military embed tomorrow and completing my mission to Babylon just after that with a new, sturdier plan of attack.

I’ll be embedding in the Iraqi province of Wasit, southeast of Baghdad, with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR). I’ll mainly be focusing on how the new US mission in Iraq is taking shape. More specifically, I’ll zero in on joint US-Iraqi efforts to secure the border with Iran in this largely Shiite province.

With the drawdown of US troops, air travel around the country has also been reduced. It will take me 3 helicopter flights to reach Wasit tomorrow, though I’m hardly complaining. But more from there starting tomorrow…

In the meantime, I’ve been staying at Forward Operating Base Prosperity in the International Zone (formerly the Green Zone). I flew in several days ago at night on a Black Hawk that swooped low across Baghdad’s sprawl, crossing the Tigris River and setting down in this heavily fortified bastion in central Baghdad.

The quality of life at Prosperity has surprised me. The dining hall serves American food, with a taco stand, caesar salad bar, burgers, grilled cheeses, corn dogs, and more every day, complementing a daily rotation of other items. This base has a Subway and a Pizza Hut, numerous local Iraqi-run shops, and even a shisha cafe.

Most surprising to me, though, has been the level of security even within the International Zone itself. I knew that the area was heavily guarded, but I imagined that once inside, the place would be fairly open and easy to move within. Not so.

Everywhere I go in the IZ, I’m required to carry my passport and a letter from the military. I end up showing these all the time. The various bases and compounds around the IZ are protected by high blast walls and legions of contracted guards. Driving from Prosperity to the US Embassy today, just a few minutes away and safely within the confines of the IZ, I was stopped at numerous check points. Even going from my room to the dining hall, I have to pass through a checkpoint. And that’s all within FOB Prosperity. The heavily armed guards at this base are Ugandan and Peruvian.

Getting restless in the IZ the other day, I convinced a Sergeant at the press office to try to get me up in a nearby guard tower to try to get a look at the “Red Zone.” Prosperity is on the edge of the IZ, and 40 feet from my room, I was told, lay the “other” Iraq.

Once we climbed the tower, I was surprised to see how the bustling city of Baghdad lapped practically up against the walls of the IZ. I had figured that the military would have enforced a buffer zone. But right below our guard tower was a crowded street, with cars honking and members of the Iraqi police force anxiously hustling everyone along.

Those are but a few observations from within the confines of the International Zone. With any luck, I’ll be reporting more unique insights from a smaller base in Wasit Province by this time tomorrow.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Iraq

posted on December 12th, 2010

Yesterday, I noted in my post that the military lays out ground rules on reporting in Iraq. I should first note that the rules it sets out apply only for journalists reporting with the military, also called embedding. Tomorrow, for example, I’m heading to Babylon without the military, and I’ll be free to report whatever I want.

A reader responded to my post yesterday, asking me to elaborate on what kind of reporting is off limits with the military. I’d refer you here: http://www.usf-iraq.com/for-the-media/media-embed-process

That’s the main webpage for embed applicants. Scroll down to item 2c, “Media Ground Rules.” I’ve had to initial and sign that page twice, and it will give you a pretty good sense of what I can and can’t do out here.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Iraq

posted on December 11th, 2010

I’ve arrived in Baghdad. My seat on the plane ride in had no window view, and my helicopter ride to the International Zone (formerly the Green Zone) will be after dark! So I don’t think I’m going to get a chance to see the city by air or by ground until I head to Babylon on Monday.

On that note, I’ll begin blogging more details after I meet with the military’s public affairs officers and have a chance to feel out the do’s and don’ts of reporting here. I’ve got an exhaustive list of items I’m prohibited from reporting, and I’d rather talk it all out with someone than risk getting booted.

I’ll spend tomorrow in the IZ. On Monday I’ll visit Babylon and then begin a weeklong embed with the U.S. military, reporting and blogging on a number of topics critical to Iraq’s security. While Babylon is the culmination of my trip (see the title of this blog if you’re confused), I hope you’ll stick with me down the homestretch as I explore the modern realities of the land Alexander conquered over 2 thousand years ago.

Written by: Theodore May
Topic: Iraq

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