Middle East Adventure Travel - The Rough Guide to Iraq (Cont.)

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The Rough Guide to Iraq (Cont.)

BY NOW WE'D BEEN TRAVELING with McCoy for more than a week, but despite frequent Third Battalion skirmishes, we hadn't seen any fighting. Now, halfway to Baghdad, more battles were in the offing. We realized that the colonel, who already had three journalists embedded in his unit—two from Time magazine and one from the San Francisco Chronicle—was not about to allow our six vehicles to drive into combat.

The convoy's tanks and armored vehicles peeled off for two days and moved northeast, attacking Afak and two smaller towns. A day after we arrived at the outskirts of the town of Diwaniya, the combat team left on another incursion—or, as McCoy called it, a "tune-up" for Baghdad. Again we were left behind. Finally, before the division attacked the city of Al Kut, McCoy agreed to start taking a few unilaterals, but we'd have to choose who.

Gary proposed drawing lots. It seemed fair to everyone except Laurent Rebours.

"Non, non," he said. "I am the Associated Press. Non."

There was a roar of disapproval. Gary picked up a stick and drew AP in the dust. He then erased it with his foot, angrily.

"Fuck the companies," he said. "It's not about them."

He then wrote Rebours's name in the dust, and did not erase it.

"The AP, I don't give a shit about. But you, Laurent, I care about. It's about us. Twelve people who have risked their lives to get here. Nothing else."

"Non," Rebours said. "I go on all missions. I work for the AP."

Albert, one of the quiet French photographers, was ready to punch him.

"Ne me fait pas chier," he said. "Tu as une attitude de merde." He added, in English, "You will never borrow my sleeping bag again."

Rebours backed down. In the end, when McCoy called for two vehicles to accompany him into battle at Al Kut, we simply threw everything out of the two largest SUVs, and six of us piled into each, like flak-jacketed clowns in a circus act.

At Al Kut, we stayed at the rear of the combat train, about a mile and a half from the front line. Sporadic fire was directed at our location, but most of it came from us: The Marines shot at anything they thought had moved. Meanwhile, a sniper hit by Iraqi fire was rushed back to the medic station; shortly after he was carried into a Chinook helicopter, he died of shock. Corporal Mark Evnin was the battalion's first Marine killed in action.

A few nights later, we were, unbelievably, nine miles from the center of Baghdad, at a factory near a bridge that led into the city. Earlier in the day, we had passed through an abandoned military base. Along with the usual assortment of portraits of Saddam Hussein and outdated computers, Ellen discovered a shower with running water. I grabbed a bar of soap, raced inside, and stripped. Just then a Marine shouted down the hallway, "The building is rigged with C4! Get out!"

I got out.

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