Road to Anarchy - Newsweek

[dArKeR]

By T. Trent Gegax
Newsweek
Updated: 1:08 p.m. ET April  10, 2004

April 10 - The chaos in Iraq this week called to mind moments a year ago when I watched the U.S. Army try to establish order. An ominous Greek chorus seemed to be sounding all around the troops. The sun was rising on the Army convoy as pilgrimaging Shia Muslims streamed down a country road north of Karbala. It was mid-April, and the war was waning. Spc. Robin Howe, a radioman, and Sgt. Todd Barger, a gunner, sat inside a Bradley armored fighting vehicle. The convoy had been rolling for 27 hours and conversation bounced from fur trapping to building a better field latrine. Now, the soldiers wiped sleep from their eyes and stared at the chanting Iraqis.

“They must think we’re like Rome,” said Howe, a quiet Wisconsin native who buried his nose in “Popular Mechanics.”

“Hell, yeah, they think we’re Rome,” said Barger, the cocky gunner from Cincinnati who talked about “H.E.” (the high-explosive rounds at his fingertips) as much as his young bride. “They think we’re here to take their country.”

“A little country like this shouldn’t have come up on our radar unless it was for the oil value,” Howe said.

“We’re here because this guy is just a bad dude,” Barger said. “He supports terrorists and he’s got chem-bio. What more do you need?”

“But we haven’t found any yet,” Howe said.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4709907/

[Miss Authoritiva]

1. The last line is eerily prophetic ....

US soldier about encounter with Iraqi: "But I tell you what. If I were in that position, I sure wouldn’t have been as nice as that guy.”

And now almost a year later that "nice guy" is probably an armed insurgent.