Arrival in Baghdad - Camp Victory

The next morning, we loaded up our gear, as before, on an Air Force pallet at 4 in the morning. We boarded a bus with a bunch of civilian contractors, went to eat chow, returned to the staging area for a coffee/piss break, and then headed off to the airfield. The man in charge of palletizing gear, drawing up the manifests, and getting passengers on the plane, had the air of a former career enlisted military guy. I have met so many men like him in my military career that I’ve lost count. Somewhat gruff, detail oriented, not afraid to tell anyone off, yet sort of well-meaning. His basic spiel was, “Be on the bus when you’re supposed to, I ain’t your babysitter, Mosul people sit in the front, Baghdad people in the back. If you screw it up, you get left behind.” So when some guy, five minutes before we head to the airfield, said, “Baghdad? I’m going to Balad. I figured you guys saw it on my orders…” I thought he would get yelled at. But for some reason he didn’t. The coordinator dude helped him figure out how to change planes in Baghdad.

There was little waiting once we got to the airfield. We got directly onto the C-130, and strapped in. The cargo was shoved in right behind us. A half hour later, we were airborne. C-130s are loud, slow, and have no view. Unless you get up to take a leak and peer out of the porthole, you won’t see a thing. Just a wall in front of you with switches, gauges, and pipes, and a whole lot of cargo straps. We all just shoved our earplugs in, and most of us slept for 80% of the 90 minute flight to Baghdad. I could tell we were getting close to Baghdad, because the plane started changing course often. I’m not sure what the reason was, but it likely had to do with alternating the flight plan from previous flights, to make it difficult to plan to shoot down the aircraft. The main difference between a commercial approach to an airport and the approach of a C-130 to Baghdad is the rapidity of descent. Most commercial planes gradually descend from 35,000 feet to whatever airport they’re going to land at. But in Baghdad, to avoid being shot at, the planes wait until just before they get to the airfield, and then they start a massive downward corkscrew above the airfield, before finally landing on the runway. It makes it hard to sit up straight in your seat, and is sort of like riding an amusement park ride.

Soon after we landed, we filed off of the aircraft, into the warm 10 AM Baghdad sun. We walked single file, past a group of civilians waiting to board the aircraft for the continuing flight to Mosul. We stopped at a staging area, where we collected our bags, and were met by the Marine liaison that would take us to Al Faw Palace for processing. We dragged our bags to a waiting SUV, and were soon bumping down the dusty roads from the airport to the Camp Victory complex. Camp Victory is unreal. The main building, the Al Faw Palace, was dedicated to the troops that defeated the Iranians during a battle of the Iran-Iraq war. The palace sits in the middle of a main lake. There are many other lakes and ponds, all surrounded by buildings of various shapes and sizes and levels of luxuriousness. All of the buildings have now been spray painted with building numbers. For example, Saddam’s former private zoo would now be something like, Bldg. 47A, Camp Victory Post Office. Guard towers and palm trees are sprinkled all over the grounds. Parking lots of SUVs, military trucks, and full bicycle racks are crammed into spaces between buildings. No matter where you are, you’re not far from a port-a-potty. Kellog, Brown, and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of the infamous Halliburton, had dragged in trailers of all shapes and sizes. Huge trailer parks full of two-person trailers are on one part of the camp. Not far away are a set of trailers that form the camp’s food court. One trailer is a Subway, one a Pizza Hut. One a barbershop, one a gift shop. As I said, unreal. We received temporary badges and made our way to the palace. I had always thought that Saddam’s palaces were likely very gaudy and tasteless buildings. But I must admit, this palace was pretty impressive. The main hall is an immense, eight sided, three story room, completely made of marble, with immense pillars on all sides and with a huge sparkling chandelier hanging from the top. It is like cathedral meets Vegas hotel lobby. The ceilings are in plaster relief geometric designs (albeit not hand-carved) of white, blue, pink, and green. The walls of the surrounding rooms are marble, and a wide, completely marble staircase winds from the bottom to top.

There have been a few changes since the US moved in. In the palace foyer, were Saddam would have met with foreign dignitaries, there is now an ID issuance desk, and a couple of Army privates checking badges. The palace rooms—kitchens, bedrooms (love nests), etc, here are now cubicles full of Colonels and computers. Where a palace guard might have leaned against a wall, there is now a fire extinguisher. Saddam’s ornate guest bathrooms are now cleaned by Pakistani men contracted by the US government. His toilet seats are pissed on by Navy chiefs. His bidets no longer splash the butts of Baghdad’s Baathists; now they're just full of extra toilet paper.