The embed process is not a perfect beast. You can end up stuck for days waiting for a patrol, get placed with an unfriendly unit or spend a month without seeing much in the way of war. On the other hand  sometimes it’s a photographers dream; lots of action, compelling images and a mountain of praise from your peers. It’s a crap shoot and the only thing you can count on is that you can’t count on anything.

My embed up to now has pretty much been a train wreck. 

It started out on Dec 2 with a two-day wait for a helicopter ride up to Baquba, 50 kms north of Baghdad. I went out on one patrol, then joined AP photographer Marko Drobnjakovic and moved east to another base near Muqdadiya. As soon as we arrived we went up to the roof to check our sat phones. His worked great, mine didn’t. I’d tested the phone twice before, so this was a very unwelcome surprise and if there is one piece of equipment you really need in Iraq, it’s a good sat phone. The army had internet, but they politely declined to let me use it and the base internet cafe would not let you send attachments. So there we are, 100 kms northeast of Baghdad on a little military post, ready to get to work, but with no means to transmit. Aside from no phone, it wasn’t long before I had other problems. A big operation was planned for the day after we arrived and the press officer gave me to one unit and Marko to another.  Marko’s unit kicked in doors and took prisoners, mine sat in their armored vehicle for 8 hours in what is known as a ‘blocking’ position. Like a speed bump with guns. To top it off, the lead vehicle in our convoy got hit by a roadside bomb (no casualties) and I could not get out to shoot a photo. It happened 500 meters away but it might as well have been 500 miles.

So after 8 days on embed I had been out on two patrols and one useless operation, transmitted 18 photos and was developing an ulcer.

On Dec 10 I decided to return to the larger base in Baquba and try to sort out the phone problems. 

Dec 11 the press office set me up on a patrol but the platoon leader changed his mind at the last minute and decided no media. 

Dec 12 my press contact overslept and we missed a patrol, so I took pictures of Iraqi laborers loading rice onto a truck in back of the mess hall. 

Dec 13 I rode around in the back of an armored troop carrier while the Sergeant Major hopped from base to base checking on the morale of his troops.  The soldiers were in good spirits, I was not.

Finally on Dec 14 I got off the base and did some work. 

Dec 15 was an air assault on the Iron Triangle north of Baquba and as fate would have it I ended up with another fringe unit.  We walked through palm groves kicking dirt clods while .50 caliber machine guns and helicopter gunships fired in the distance.  By this time I was convinced the press office was deliberately sabotaging my embed and had a long heart to heart with the head PAO, asking what the hell was going on.  He said my problems boiled down to two words….’bad luck’.  

Which brings us to today.  I’ve returned to Baghdad to replace the sat phone and try to jump start the embed and at 8 pm I have a flight up to Baiji where I will hook up with the 101st Airborne Division.  I’m hoping that the next two weeks will be everything the past two haven’t been.
 

My last visit to Iraq was six months ago and as I returned to Baghdad on Saturday for a month-long embed, I wondered if anything had really changed. Sometimes it’s the little things you notice first.  Like the new luggage trolleys in the airport arrivals area, or the long queue of taxis outside waiting for customers, where before there had only been a dusty bus to the main checkpoint. Or the way the security contractors getting off my flight, instead of flashing their DOD badges and strolling past immigration officials like before, now step into a special line next to the visa office and produce sheafs of documents for a thorough pre-entry governmental screening.

Route Irish, the infamously dangerous highway leading from the airport to central Baghdad, was at one time marked by almost daily suicide car bombings.  Today the ride is quiet, the highway almost deserted. Instead of the circuitous route once required by road closures and checkpoint bottlenecks, we now take a more direct path and arrive quickly to Abu Nawas, a broad avenue on the banks of the Tigris River which has been recently been reopened by the government.

The riverfront was once famous for its restaurants serving grilled fish,  which disappeared after the war and the area had become an inhospitable dustbowl, deserted save for few mongrel dogs and the occasional army patrol. But as we drive down the boulevard today I see a few restaurants have returned and children are playing in a freshly scrubbed park.

We arrive at the office and I’m greeted by colleagues and old friends. Through good times and bad times, their wonderful Iraqi hospitality has never wavered. As I talk to the staff, I ask if maybe things are getting better, that maybe the worse is over.  To a person the answer is the same, “Inshallah” - God willing.