Oerdin's Iraq thread.

[gamenaught]

I am hoping that one or two people out their might like to read a first hand account from the Iraqi war zone.

Cool. Our very own embedded reporter!

[DRoseDARs]

As long as you and the rest of the troops stay safe, that's all I ask.

[Harovan]

I will lurk as always. It will be a welcome additional source of information.

[East Street Trader]

The "palaces" looked a bit tawdry when they were shown in news clips.

Did the perimeter wall and towers have to be built or was the compound defended like that in Ba'ath party days?

[BeBMan]

Good idea for a thread. Thanks for sharing your impressions

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Let's try to not kill Oerdin's thread, okay?

Nobody will kill Oerdin's thread. Just their ability to post in it..

[Bereta_Eder]

Tell us about the Kurds!

[Arrian]

I'll be reading, Oerdin. Be careful.

-Arrian

[Lancer]

Hey Oerdin, how many troops are in the compound and what are their dispositions?

[MrFun]

How about if we top this thread for a period of time?

I think that would be a nice little favor for the mods to do for Oerdin.

[Pekka]

Great thread! Very interesting and good. Thanks for taking the time to report back to us, I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say this will be followed closely.

What's the food like? What about the atmosphere? How hot it usually gets in day time?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by MrFun
How about if we top this thread for a period of time?

I think that would be a nice little favor for the mods to do for Oerdin.

I think it would be useless, since it'll only open the thread to more useless spam. When Oerdin has something to add to this thread (basically, his Iraq blog), he will search for it on page 10, I'm sure.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
The Tikrit blogger. huh?

You can claim you took a dump in the same lavatory as Saddam.

I will be setting up a blog as soon as my unit takes over from the out going Psyop unit and I have sole control over one of the computers here. Until then I'm going to keep this thread alive and record a few observations and experiences.

It is an interesting thought that I may have **** in the same pot as Saddam but the reality is I live in a guest house a block away from his palace so I doubt he ever stopped by. A couple friends and I spent several hours rumaging through the build/ruins of Saddam's personal palace in Tikrit. The place got hit with no less then five tomahawks during the war and most of the second story is badly damaged. The structure itself is still standing and is built out of steel reinforced concrete but most of the inside has been badly, badly damaged by the explosions and in several places the cieling has collapsed.

Still, I'm going to go back with a digital camera and I will post a few choice pictures here at poly. I'm sure someone will like seeing the remains of Saddam's granduer. The Sad thing is the place was very poorly layed out and archetually it looks very boring. I mean it's like Saddam never had an idea of how to build a palace other then just to make everything three times larger then in a normal house. I'm vaguely reminded of one of those old documentaries which explores the palaces Hitler had constructed for himself and other members of the Nazi party because it seems all dictators don't have any new ideas about what makes a good home or what is the most efficient lay out for a public building.

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by Oerdin
... The structure itself is still standing and is built out of steel reinforced concrete but most of the inside has been badly, badly damaged by the explosions and in several places the cieling has collapsed.

I've lived in worse. Voluntarily.

Thanks for the blog - will look forward to further posting.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
The "palaces" looked a bit tawdry when they were shown in news clips.

Did the perimeter wall and towers have to be built or was the compound defended like that in Ba'ath party days?

The perimeter walls including the gun towers were constructed by the Ba'ath party to keep it's members safe from possible domestic attackers. It appears that even in his home town Saddam feared attack and so fortified his home.

The US has added several more "security measures" including barbed wire fences to keep people back from the walls, movable concrete blast walls & speed bumps to protect against suicide car bombers, internal concrete blast walls to subdivid the compound incase of attack, and several claymors and what not.