The soldiers keeping the checkpoint were Polish. I waited for a few minutes, then one of them handed me a scrap of paper with an email address and told me I needed to make an appointment to get in and see the site. So I will be returning to Babylon on my way back up.
So quickly we forget that this is a multinational operation - I passed convoys of Spanish, Polish, Dutch, and American vehicles on the road south to Nasiriyah. I had paid good coin for a private taxi south to the city, though this would not work in my favour: I was exchanged once in Hillah, but the driver's piece of crap car was dying near Samawa about 105km from Nasiriyah. So he ushered me into a shared taxi and I got the ever so comfortable middle front seat to Nasiriyah.
This town is quite pleasant - however, it is also overshadowed by the massive bombing that occured a few days ago at the Italian Caribinieri building. There is a massive chunk torn out of the structure, the bridge beside it is closed, and this morning the Italian army was here with cranes and trucks to salvage a few burned out shells of some vehicles they had parked out front. Also yesterday they pulled out two more bodies. I believe the death toll was 18 Italians, and at least 8 people on the street. 62 wounded.
Throngs of kids surround the site, waiting for a chance to run in and grab anything of value. There are a large number of kids here who don't go to school, even though the schools are open; their parents just tell them to get lost and bring back some money. So they wait around this site, sifting through the rubble, looking for any scraps that can be sold for a few dinars. As well there was a woman grabbing stray chunks of wood, who needed to be shooed away by Italian soldiers as she wandered into the site.
"Some of this could be evidence, to find out who did this," my guide told me. I had been assigned a guide here, from the contact I am visiting. He was kind enough to show me around the town. There was a peace march a day after the bombing to demonstrate the population's support for the foreign occupiers. He told me that the people who did this, and indeed most of the attacks against coalition forces in these regions, are foreigners from other Arab and central Asian countries coming here to wage their jihad, entering from the now porous border crossings where everyone is allowed in. Nasiriyah is a very pro-American place and anti-Ba'athist town. He pointed out that a large amount of the destruction came from widespread looting of old party buildings, people tearing off windows and doors and stealing the bricks to build their own houses. Also, other Ba'ath buildings have been occupied by new Iraqi political parties, which now must number in the thousands, who don't pay rent and t ry to promote their new ideologies.
Tomorrow I'm off to Ur, my contact here should be able to get me in reasonably easily. It as well is behind a checkpoint, I was surprised that unlike Ctesiphon which was wide open for business(to Iranian tour buses) these more ancient ruins are being guarded by coalition soldiers.
Ur
