Dragon

As we prepare to re-deploy, my team was moved from the patrol base in the city to the battalion headquarters at Combat Outpost Dragon. Dragon is housed in the skeleton of a half-built Thermal Power Plant. When the American Army fought their way into Yusufiya, Al Qaeda was using the plant as a base of operations. Legend has it that the first American army unit found open graves with the bodies of Russian workers with dog heads sewn on their necks.  In the rafters, faint graffiti reads 'allah is great.'

The army installed plywood offices in the concrete high-rises meant to hold condensers and conduits of steam.  The towering concrete smoke-stack became our polestar.  During our air assault across the Euphrates,  a glance at the horizon explained our position.

When I told the Iraqis we were moving to the power plant, they were confused.  "The Russian power plant," I explained.  "But that's never produced any power," they laughed, finding it ironic that the American Reconstruction Team was to live in a non-functional power plant.

Surrounding Dragon are fields of potatoes and houses of mud or brick.  The farmers have watched activity at the power plant for at least 10 years now.  Like other aspects of Iraq, Dragon is a modern complexity amidst an ancient culture.  And it has yet to produce.