Thanksgiving 2007: Grateful troops receive a hot meal at Patrol Base Murray -- Credit: Silvia Spring

For the troops at Patrol Base Murray, Thanksgiving dinner arrived in 16 green plastic shipping containers around two o'clock in the afternoon. The meal had made the 45-minute truck ride from forward operating base Falcon (moving during the middle of the day, when it's safest) to get here hot for the troops, who lined up quietly with their plastic plates and utensils before moving down the cafeteria-style serving line.

 
Soldiers become citizens

For some, the shortest path to American citizenship is through Iraq. At least that was the case for the 178 foreign-born service members sworn in yesterday at Balad Airbase, about 70 miles north of Baghdad—in the largest naturalization ceremony to have taken place in Iraq to date.

Balad was once home to Iraq’s air force academy, and the place is enormous. From the landing zone it was about a 10-minute ride to Sustainment Theater (the base’s cinema), where the ceremony was held. Twenty thousand soldiers live and work here as part of the 316th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, alongside about 7,000 local Iraqi staffers. And it even has its own newspaper, the Anaconda Times.

 
Exhibitors at the Kurdistan show

It’s hardly surprising that a trade show in a country steeped in violence, where most banks cannot make electronic transfers, is, um, a little different. So it is on the outskirts of Sulaymaniyah, the Iraqi Kurdish city hosting this week’s Kurdistan 2007 business exchange. Held in a yellow, warehouselike exposition hall, it’s the place to go if you want Iranian elevators, gleaming Turkish kitchen equipment or just a good show of eclectic entrepreneurship. The Czech arms dealer opted to display photos of his Kalashnikov rifles rather than bringing the real thing. But a uniform maker did bring some samples, including Chinese knockoffs of U.S. Army togs, complete with digitized camouflage.

Then there was an entrancing booth run by the Kurdish regional ministry of the interior at which an enthusiastic captain displayed handcuffs and thick nightsticks to a group of high-school girls in navy blue uniforms. “They are for saluting your superiors, not beating people,” he told the girls (though they looked like they could do the beating job too). A ministry video showed plainclothes cops firing blindly at criminals hiding in a shadowy courtyard and then trying to blast them out with high-pressure fire hoses. Nearby, some South Africans promoted a new line of mine-resistant vehicles. For the peckish, most of the more than 200 merchants had candy dishes to entice the crowds; a food company offered free pickles.

The sheik support center

As far as regional summits go, the one this morning at the month-old sheik support center in Taji, about 15 miles north of Baghdad, was pretty casual. The idea behind its opening--in theory, at least—was to provide a neutral place where Sunni and Shia sheiks can come to discuss local governance issues.  But the two-story building itself looked more like an abandoned residence (which it likely is), and it was filled not with Iraqis heatedly debating the region's economic development, but with U.S. soldiers keen to take a break from the outdoor heat and find a cool place to ditch their Kevlar vests. As I toured the building with a group of journalists, more than one joked that he wanted to see where the sheiks kept their ping-pong table.

After being herded into a tent in the front garden, the event started out with speeches from Sheik Nadeem Sultan, who founded the center, and Tahan Nehma, a representative from the office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The audience seated in rows of plastic chairs talked through the addresses, with Public Affairs Officer Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl joking that the center had been a disco called "Sheik Your Booty" in the 70s. Few noticed when the sound system cut out every now and again. And a man wove through the rows serving Iraqi coffee, meant to be downed from a small ceramic cup in one swig--not an especially pleasant experience given the hot weather.

View From a Distance: A still from the new videotape

New footage of the aftermath of the deadly Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square is being cited by Blackwater defenders as helpful to their version of events.

A new 10-minute video posted on YouTube that shows the aftermath of the violent Sept. 16 shooting incident in Baghdad’s Nisour Square is being cited by people close to Blackwater USA as evidence which could counter allegations of possible abuses by its security operatives during a shooting incident that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead. The video, apparently released by the Iraqi government, shows a burning vehicle and what appear to be soldiers and armored cars swarming into and out of the frame. Some Blackwater people think the video is helpful because of what it doesn’t show: no bodies, no pools of blood, no ambulances or stretchers. On the other hand, it does little to resolve the key issues under investigation, such as who fired first and why.

Indeed, the video may prove only one thing: the limitations of new measures to increase the accountability of security contractors in Iraq. A panel of experts appointed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to investigate the Sept. 16 incident recommended that the State Department pay for the installation of video and audio recorders in every vehicle used by the three big private security contractors assigned to protect U.S. diplomats and other visiting VIPs. A committee of State Department and Pentagon officials is now discussing the practical details of buying and installing the cameras. Sources at all three companies--Blackwater, Dyncorp and Triple Canopy Inc.--told NEWSWEEK they’d be happy to use camera because they believe the equipment will more likely exonerate their operatives than incriminate them. Dyncorp spokesman Greg Lagana said that when his company first won contracts to protect U.S. government personnel in war zones abroad, a State Department security officer was assigned to command each protective detail and took responsibility for anything that happened. Rice has ordered her security office to send over more agents, but up until now the State Department simply has not had enough officers to cover every convoy in Iraq.

The Sept. 16 incident also brought into sharp relief other flaws in State Department procedures. According to a U.S. law enforcement official, when State Department officers first started investigating the incident, they told witnesses they interviewed that whatever information they volunteered could not be used against them. This offer amounted to legal “immunity,” said the source, who also asked for anonymity, and it has tainted evidence gathered by the State Department team so badly that the Justice Department in Washington has had to remove from the case any investigators who might have read initial witness statements. They have been replaced with a fresh team of prosecutors.

(NEWSWEEK obtained an on-scene video of the aftermath of the shooting from the Iraq National Police shortly after the incident.)