Iraq

This was taken from a Black Hawk helicopter over the Tigris river in Baghdad. The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk is the workhorse of the U.S. military. The mosque is near the Sabatash Tammuz bridge near Saddam Hussein's Haifa Street Palace.

I spent some time on a Combat Operating Post near Rawah, a town on the Euphrates river in Al Anbar Province.

The post was still under construction. It was home to a Stryker Brigade. It was part of the U.S. military's effort to get control of Al Anbar, which was an insurgent base. Rawah overlooked one of the few bridges that crossed the Euphrates in Al Anbar and so was considered crucial in cutting off the flow of "foreign fighters" heading toward Baghdad from Syria.

Al Qaeda was believed to have free rein in Rawah, itself a Baath Party stronghold.