Friday, December 29, 2006
A river runs through it
It being Iraq and the LA Times details the story of the Tigris river patrol. For the most part they have become fishers of men and women and children.
Divers call it "the burial ground," an impenetrably dark stretch of the Tigris River, about 20 feet deep, passing through the heart of Baghdad.Saddam set up the first patrol to clean up the bodies and we had to set up a second patrol to do the same when we took over. Nice legacy you got there Georgie Boy. Too bad you lost your wars.
Cruising the river on a recent day strapped into life jackets that double as body armor, members of Baghdad's river patrol pointed to bridges near where they swam as children and now recover the city's dead.
"Violence, terror — it is part of what is going on here in Iraq," said a river patrol captain who would not give his name, fearing that insurgents in his neighborhood would discover that he works with the police. He said he gave up swimming in the river years ago and bought a pool.
The patrol's commander, Lt. Col. Alaa Saleh Ibrahim, has learned this much patrolling the stretch of muddy river the last two years: It takes at least 10 days for bodies to surface in winter. Men float faceup, women facedown.
Fishermen find bodies tangled in the 10-foot-tall green reeds that line the sandy banks.
"This month we are relieved," Ibrahim said. "We don't have so many dead bodies."
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