Life in battened-down Baghdad-Armoured city sends mixed messages

[54anickel]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1070493010535&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

Is this indicative of the progress Shrub keeps spouting?


BAGHDAD—The grimaces on these young American faces speak volumes, however monosyllabic their words may be. Turkey Day has come and gone, and that whisper of a visit from President George W. Bush barely echoes now in the ears of his troops in Iraq.

A young corporal named Bourgeois corrected a reporter yesterday when asked whether the president's dramatic night-time foray brought any kind of levity to his personal slog in Baghdad, now a stale seven months old.

The first answer, an embittered, dirty look. Then, grudgingly, to fill the dragging silence: "They said he came to Baghdad, but it was really only BIAP." (Translation: Baghdad International Airport, in army-speak.)

Bourgeois' final thought on the matter: Neither he nor anyone else in his unit would have gone anywhere near Bush had they known of his visit, which they didn't, and had they been enjoying a rare day off, which they weren't.

"I would have been somewhere else," he said. "Sounds like a pretty high-profile target to me."

Much more...some "good" news/bad news

[NNN0LHI]

1. Nice find. Thanks for the post n/t