Moving Again ... Maybe

After a month, more or less, here in Baghdad, I might be getting a new
assignment. There is some reorganization going on with the various
staffs that run the war. A lot of people are moving to new offices. For
about 1200 of them it means moving to new living quarters in different
camps. For me, at least for a few months, it might mean moving to Basrah
in Southern Iraq. It is still up in the air of course. Organizing a
flight down there is a bit difficult, because there aren't many seats to
spare. There is also a little argument about command prerogatives that
needs to be settled. The guy I will replace down there doesn't really
belong to the commander down there, but he doesn't want to have to train
someone new to do the job. There are politics involved in every
organization of more than one person. I think that it will happen sooner
rather than later
It will also be interesting. Basrah is run by the Brits, and they do
things a bit differently. I will also be a little closer to the work,
than up here. All I get here are reports. Down there, I would be working
directly with one of the reconstruction teams, still in an office, but I
would get first hand reports instead of third hand reports. I would be
back up here again before the end of the year too, so it wouldn't be
long.
I don't think that it will be much longer before most coalition forces
withdraw from Iraq, two years, at most, and that is the end of the
drawdown, not the beginning. In a lot of places, the Iraqis are not even
bothering to talk to us anymore. They are just doing the work
themselves, both kinetic and civil. There are actually a lot of US
troops complaining about how boring Iraq is now. A lot of them are
hoping to go to Afghanistan soon to be where the action is. It may be
that when our staff reorganization is done a few of us may end up over
there as well. At least four already have orders to that effect. A few
might even go home early.
Hopefully, I will know on Sunday, if I am really transferring. Any
later, and I won't be able to get a seat on the transport for another
week.