Everyone I met that afternoon had a gut-wrenching story to tell. Mary McHugh is one of those people. She sat in front of the grave of her fiance ... ...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images The Green Zone is an unlikely place for a performance of Rossini. After years now as a besieged fortress, the seat of American power in Iraq is all but a wasteland: four...
Read MoreBAGHDAD, IRAQ – MAY 09: Sgt. Kwame Williams of Aurora, Colo. of the 3-89 Cavalry in the 10th Mountain Division stands guard during a night patrol in the tense eastern suburbs of Baghdad in the...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images Iraq, many people might be surprised to learn, has a functioning court system. Well, “functioning” might be too strong of a word, but it does have an array of non-religious criminal courts...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images A few evenings ago, I rode in a Blackhawk helicopter over Baghdad in the dead of night. The Army flies dozens of loosely scheduled Blackhawk runs here every day, ferrying troops and...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images BAGHDAD, IRAQ: A street in the Green Zone is seen through a U.S. military Humvee window March 8, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq. I won’t be running in the Green Zone anymore,...
Read MoreIt’s easy to fly to Iraq. There are three flights a day from Amman, Jordan on the country’s national carrier, Royal Jordanian Airlines; it’s about a 90 minute trip, soaring over the saffron sands of...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images The chapel of Forward Operating Base Falcon was packed; the pews were full of soldiers, from generals to privates, and more men stood alongside the walls and in the back. At the...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images The other day I had a meeting downtown, so one of our drivers, who I’ll call Wadeen, and I found ourselves wading through some of Baghdad’s famously mind-numbing traffic jams. I like...
Read MoreIt had been a slow morning at the hospital, until they arrived. One by one, bloodied and crying, carried in the arms of men and women with wounds themselves — a child, her mother, two...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images Sometimes I jog in Iraq, outside my hotel, but only at night. This seems impossible, but it can be done. The hotel where I live is in a relatively calm neighborhood of...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images I watched ethnic cleansing today, and it wasn’t pretty. I’m in Gazaliyah, a neighborhood that was predominantly Sunni Muslim until recently, when Shia militants have been taking over, block by block, forcing...
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