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April 14, 2006
Soldiers patrol one of Saddam's wrecked palaces in Babylon.
Camp Iskan, Iraq,
Friday, April 14
We found ourselves with a rare quiet afternoon earlier this week while working from Forward Operating Base Duke, at Hillah. So Maj. John Basso, a friendly executive officer with the 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Hood, took us to visit the ancient ruins of Babylon.
The site is closed now and is under the control of Iraq's Minister of Antiquities. But we were allowed a quick drive-through.
The holy city of Babylonia dates to 2300 BC. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, said to be built by King Nebuchadnezzar, were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Alexander the Great ruled it for a while.
In our quick tour, we got to walk through only one palace built by one megalomaniacal leader - a gargantuan temple to hubris constructed by order of Saddam Hussein. It rests directly on top of some of Babylon's more noteworthy ruins.
The palace is empty now, its windows broken and fixtures looted. Some U.S. Marines used it as a base for a while. They left behind a basketball hoop nailed to a wall in what looks to be the main ballroom. Saddam's own gardens of Babylon, meant to cover the hill below his palace, are dead now.
But there his monument sits, atop the hill, visible for miles, while he's on trial in Baghdad. English majors who were paying attention in class might recall some lines from Shelley's poem Ozymandias:
Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck
boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far way.
Posted by Doug Swanson 
at 12:41 PM (E-mail this entry)
Lt. Col. Michael Hilliard, Commander of the U.S. Army's 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery of the 4th Infantry Division, reflects after talking with Iraqi Army Col. Majeed Muhammed Hannon about a car bomb that killed 12 people in Najaf, Iraq.
“The way to kill the insurgency is to gain people’s support,
where the guy living next door to the insurgent
gets tired of the violence,” the lieutenant colonel says.
“The head of the snake is going to get squeezed off.
It’s just a matter of time.”
Dallas Morning News reporter Doug Swanson and photojournalist Michael Mulvey are embedded with the 4th Infantry Division in Najaf. Read Doug's story about Lt. Col. Hilliard's mission as base commander of Camp Duke and see more of Michael's photos in Sunday's News.
Posted by Oscar Martinez at 11:12 AM (E-mail this entry)
