Beanie Babies, Newspapers And Rice

That is the news coming out of Al Anbar now that the bad guys have been driven out. Michael Totten writes about one such mission on the outskirts of Ramadi where even removed his bullet-proofing as they handed out food. There are still a couple hotspots but the corner has been turned and now we can focus on the infrastrucure and humanitarian needs of the people beyond just basic security, like electricty, water and sewage projects and rebuilding.

This is what it’s like now in and just outside Ramadi. This mission is the kind of thing embedded journalists see, which is why most war correspondents embed somewhere else. Soldiers Hand Out Newspapers and Rice isn’t much of a headline, and it’s even less of a scoop. But this is the kind of work soldiers do now every day in what was recently the most violent place in Iraq.

That doesn’t mean reporters who go somewhere else aren’t doing their jobs, but it mostly explains why you rarely see coverage from Anbar.