Oh man

I didn't bring nearly enough Carmex to Baghdad. This is a problem of epic proportions for an admitted junkie. My lips may fall off.

The main reason for this sentiment at this particular moment in time is that today I had my first helicopter ride. When it is hot outside, troops leave the sliding doors on both sides of the helicopter open. For the person in the front row of back seats, this causes a constant blast of hot air directly in your face.

I had been warned about this before leaving on my trip to Baquba (zoom out for some context) and advised not to sit in the two seats by the doors. On the way in I successfully avoided it, landing in a (closed) window seat in the back row. On the way back to Baghdad, I got unlucky -- last person to the chopper gets the tornado seat! I think the dust is permanently embedded in my face (this is after a shower and a copious amount of moisturizer), and my lips... oh man.

On a related note, wearing 30 pounds of body armor and a five-pound helmet when it's 130 degrees outside is not so pleasant. I felt like I was about to fall over all day long.

All that being said, though, the helicopter ride was pretty cool. Maybe when I'm less tired I will post photos taken from the sky. They mostly show desert, which is kind of a boring thing to photograph, but I had fun doing it. There's a whole lot of open desert here.

What do we think are the chances of Baghdad-produced lip balm satisfying a Carmex addict?

Parliament's recess

The issue of the Iraqi parliament's August recess has become hugely controversial in the U.S. (much more so than in Iraq, it seems). Most recently, I came across this Mitch Albom column arguing that the month-long vacation is ridiculous as the war is going on. Tony Snow certainly didn't help the legislators' case with his glib comment that "it's 130 degrees in Baghdad in August" since, um, there are American troops there with 80 pounds of gear on (and the rest of us are still working here too!). This seems to be the one Iraq-related topic that people across the political spectrum are riled up about. It seems to me that the outrage on the right is motivated by frustrations that there won't be any political progress made by the Sept. 15 deadline for a progress report -- and with waning Congressional support for the war, that report will be important for Bush. I tend to think that line of argument against the recess is more valid than the left's, which seems to me to be driven by some childish glee every time something goes wrong in Iraq.

All that said, I think all the criticism is misguided. First of all, as lawmakers have pointed out in numerous media accounts, the recess is constitutionally-mandated. Parliament is supposed to be in session for two four-month sessions each year, with a two-month break between each session. The two breaks can be shortened to one month at the request of the Prime Minister, but the way I read the constitution it can't be any shorter than a month.

Sure, critics say, but if they were really dedicated they would pass emergency legislation to change the statute and stick around. But let's keep in mind that many, if not most lawmakers have moved their families out of Baghdad because they could be targeted here. Without a break, parliament members would have the choice between leaving their families in Baghdad -- where members of the government and their families would be good targets for many insurgent groups -- or not seeing their spouses, children, etc. at all. Since it's not their fault that Baghdad is unsafe, punishing them like that seems unfair.

We should also remember that legislators generally work seven days a week when they are in session (and I mean holding sessions every day, not typing a few e-mails from home). The reason for the breaks is because they aren't getting time off during the rest of the year, which would seem slightly cruel.

A column (subscription only) in The New York Times a couple of weeks ago summed up one other important point nicely. I don't mean this as a political statement, or even as a criticism of Congress, just some context:

"It is also mildly bizarre to see our lawmakers castigate the Iraqis for taking a summer recess when they themselves have just taken a break (the ''spring district work period''), which occurred even as work on a bill to provide money for our troops went uncompleted. And that's not the end of it. They are also preparing to take another siesta in August (the ''summer district work period'').

Some have argued that it's far more important for the Iraqis to meet, because they're in the middle of a war. But lest we forget, there are American men and women fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq right now. We're in the middle of a war, too."

Oh, what a day

It's been one of those days when working in Iraq is an incredibly frustrating experience. When I woke up this morning, I had exactly two items on my agenda: a noon meeting and a 2 p.m. meeting, both in the Green Zone. I didn't make it to either one.

About half an hour before I was scheduled to leave for the first meeting, an explosion shook our building. We soon learned that the cause was a car bomb a few blocks from our house. We left the house shortly afterward, but as soon as we turned from our little side street onto the main road we were greeted by a mass of cars at a complete standstill. Police had immediately begun blocking roads after the bomb, so we were stuck. We had left an hour to get to the Green Zone, about five miles away, but we quickly realized we'd never make it, so we turned around and went home.

At 1 p.m., I donned my abaya and hijab again and set out for the 2 p.m. meeting. We got onto the main road with relatively little trouble this time and thought we were in the clear. But when we turned onto Abu Nuwas Street, the once-thriving strip of restaurants and shops along the Tigris, we found another complete traffic jam. We inched along for 45 minutes or so, decided we wouldn't make it to the Green Zone anywhere near 2, and turned around. In an hour of driving, we made it precisely 2.2 miles round-trip. To make matters worse, the car was threatening to overheat, so we rode without air conditioning.

And then there is the cell phone problem. For one reason or another, the entire Iraqi cell network has been out of service all day long. It makes it a bit difficult to do my job.

Here's to a better day tomorrow.

Welcome to the desert

If I were technologically savvy, I would insert some sort of little plug-in to this blog page that automatically displayed the current temperature in Baghdad (it occurs to me that I have friends, some of whom may even be reading this blog, who are technologically savvy. Just sayin'.) In layman's term's it's really freaking hot.

Now, I knew before I got into this that Iraq is a hot place. It's the desert, after all, and deserts are typically warm. But I guess I thought hot meant D.C.-in-August temperatures--100, maybe a little over on a bad day. And then I found this web site. There I learned that the average high temperature in July is 110 degrees. Yikes. A couple of weeks before I left, I looked at a huge worldwide weather map in USA Today and noticed that Baghdad was the hottest place in the entire world. This heat doesn't mess around.

Fortunately our house is air-conditioned, with the exception of the hallways and the bathrooms. I don't spend much time hanging out in the hall, but walking from the cool sanctuary of my bedroom to go take a shower is a rough transition. Even while taking a cold shower I can feel the hot air.

On Saturday, when I had to wait outside while the Green Zone's identification staff took an extended lunch break, I learned what 114 degrees feels like. People keep telling me that it's a dry heat, that it's so much more manageable than the humidity of D.C. Well, they're wrong. 114 is not manageable. 114 is brutal, cruel, inhumane. Especially in an abaya and hijab.

UPDATE: MMS wins the geeky friend prize, and I now have a weather display. Awesome.

Body armor

I picked up my body armor today. My organization has sent about 90 people to Iraq, each of them with their own vest at a cost of $1,600 each--evidently it is supremely important that each one be custom-fit. Mine is level III armor, which combines Kevlar, ceramic and steel plates so that it is resistant to military rifle bullets, handguns and sub-machine guns like AK-47s. The only thing it won't stop is armor-piercing bullets, which require a special set of plates. Mine looks very similar to this, with a removable groin protector and lots of velcro-attached pockets on the front. It has plates in the sides to prevent injury from shrapnel, a ceramic collar for the same purpose and a spiffy little "Press" tag that can come off if necessary.

It's also unbelievably heavy.

My vest's creator estimated it's a 25-30 pound vest; for a relatively slight woman, that's a huge percentage of my body weight. It took a surprising amount of strength just to lift it over my head, and by the time I hooked the Velcro around my stomach all I wanted to do was sit down. And this was in an air-conditioned office, a far cry from the 130 degrees of Baghdad in August. I know it's better than the alternative, but wearing this thing is going to be a major challenge.