Wednesday, November 13, 2003

16:45 – Baghdad. We’ve moved again, both office and billet. Instead of an All Hands electromail this time to tell us of this impending relocation, the powers that be simply deposited flyers on each bunk in the north wing, informing us that we would be relocated to the Chapel the next day. The bunks in the north wing are scattered around the foyer and the serpentine hallways and crannies formed by the sloppy subdivision of the larger spaces as required to accommodate the ever increasing office needs of the CPA. It’s a far reaching development, but there’s enough walls around to give the impression of reduced density.

The chapel, by comparison, is one large box of a room with a mural of the Dome on the Rock on one wall, and SCUD’s rocketing towards Jerusalem on another. It used to be Saddam’s local intimidation chamber. He would sit on his throne under the SCUDs, and pass life or death judgments on the unfortunate few who were commanded to attend. It is now filled with bunk beds, arranged in tight rows, separated by less than two feet on a side. I have yet to count, but there must be bunks enough to store at least three or four hundred people in this space, inconveniently located adjacent to the mess hall, where more than 11,000 meals are served each day. It’s a long way from the relative quiet (and bathrooms) of the north wing.

We refused to move there. Instead, we are living under our desks, more or less.

The ultimate solution to our office space dilemma is to take over a 14,000 square foot space at the south end of the palace. This may be a bit spacious for our current group, but we do expect the IIRO/PMO to grow to about 150 within six months, so we’ll need lots of room. As of now, there’s just the sixteen of us in the PMO now joined by the Admiral (David Nash, retired) and his staff of eight. It’s not as nice as it will be though, once the former tenants finish moving out.

KBR (Kellogg Brown and Root, pronounced “Halliburton”) is performing many of the mundane tasks associated with the occupation. In the palace, their most notable contribution is providing food and lodging to CPA staff. And since KBR folks need lodging to, they had been using this 14,000 square feet (0.130 hectares for the Metrically inclined) for offices and sleeping space. Most of the offices have been cleaned out, but there are still scores of tradesmen sleeping in “the Ghetto”, as they so lovingly refer to our new end of the building. They should be out of here and completely moved into their new accommodations by Friday.

Of course, saying something will be done by Friday is the Iraqi equivalent to “soon come”. A more reasonable estimate would be a month from now.

We expect to move our desks a couple of times as we take over the balance of the space and our staff increases. As for my bunk,… I’m happy where it is now, actually, and wouldn’t mind keeping it there for the duration. Although there are still six of us in one adequately sized storeroom to the back of the Ghetto, the lack of general palace noise is dramatic. Add to that the white noise from a very effective air conditioning unit, and we all overslept this morning, each victims of a rare relaxing sleep.