In the moments before a howitzer fires, time seems to slow even as activity speeds to a frenzy, the mammoth gun playing host to a group of soldiers with one goal in mind: fire the round quickly, accurately, and without incident. A soldier shouts, coordinates and direction spilling from his mouth, numbers and letters arranged so oddly is seems as though he speaks another language. There is a curious cadence to his speech, a rhythm that the rest of the …

The past few weeks have seen a surge of suicide bombings in Iraq’s major cities. The bombers seemed to have aimed for maximum casualties, and they have succeeded. The attackers have targeted large gatherings of Shiite Moslems and their intent seems clear – to reignite sectarian violence as U.S. forces proceed with plans to withdraw from Iraq’s cities.

After two years of steadily declining violence, is Iraq set to return to the “bad old days”? I believe it will not. …

It is a scene familiar to any American: the sight of children walking home from school, an adolescent flood spilling out onto the streets, making their way home alone, or more often, in groups. But this is not America, this is Baghdad, and there are myriad differences to the scene that are sharp reminders of that fact.

Most noticeably, the students are all girls, students at a female school in Abu Ghraib, a city west of Baghdad. This would not …

If Iraqi’s are trained to drive army transport trucks, perhaps that means fewer Americans are needed to do the job. If a man from Baghdad is taught how to load freon to a Humvee’s air conditioning system, maybe a U.S. soldier who did that job can come home. There are hundreds of other skills that Iraqi’s need to learn if they are indeed going to take over more control of their nation. The more they do, the fewer Americans they …

The Army used to call it battle space.  Now their war zone real estate is officially named the Operational Environment (OE).  It carries a much less kinetic connotation and that is precisely what the U.S. military wants to project.  By June 30^th, the status of forces agreement requires U.S. forces to stop combat operations in Iraqi cities unless Iraqi security forces request their help.

Last year at this time when the “surge” was at its …