Marines Say They See a Safer Iraq

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Marines Say They See a Safer Iraq
Associated Press | By Eric Talmadge | March 24, 2008

AL-ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq - It's four in the morning and the convoy is staged and ready to roll. Today's run has 70 vehicles - 50 trucks loaded with food, water and supplies and 20 military escorts, guns mounted and turrets manned.

When it hits the road, the convoy will sprawl six miles long.

The course ahead is a 70-mile stretch of desert highway through the oasis hamlet of Baghdadi and out to Haditha Dam, where the Euphrates River meets Lake Qadisiya.

The dam, on the outskirts of a dusty city by the same name of about 78,000, is Iraq's second-largest source of hydroelectricity, and the U.S. Marines' Combat Logistics Battalion 4 - CLB 4 - has been protecting its lifelines for the past seven months.

Supply routes vary, but today's will be primarily along Bronze, which is a relief to everyone. Bronze is smoother, and in the back of the Marines' new armored vehicle, the much-delayed MRAP, that means a lot less bouncing around.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,164550,00.html