The Atlantic Home

FALLUJAH -- I was sure he would cancel the meeting. The night was intensely dusty. Blizzard-like conditions made driving hazardous, even at the single-digit speed limits posted in some areas around the Marine base. But the Mayor of Fallujah defied the elements, penetrated a gauntlet of security checkpoints, and showed up on base to talk with the Americans anyway. The ePRT members and one Marine gratefully set a table for him: water, Fanta, and individually wrapped Otis Spunkmeyer muffins, each secure and inviolate in a shield of plastic.

KARMAH -- A dispatch by Rod Nordland of the New York Times asks whether the violence in Fallujah -- lately viewed as a model of an Anbar city pacified and handed over to the Iraqis -- is really in remission. His excellent report, filed from Fallujah and from the even more restive nearby town of Karmah, where I just spent two days, leaves the question unanswered but suggests a reality darker than the version the Marines describe.

FALLUJAH -- Every Marine officer who sees me reading The Ugly American (another MWR library treasure) nods in recognition and asks me what I think of it. At first I thought the Marine Corps had recruited an unusually bookwormish class of junior officers. Later, a lieutenant told me it was on the Marines' required reading list. I can think of few better texts for their curriculum.

FALLUJAH - In 2004, I asked my friend Yasir al-Gabara, an Iraqi Christian, whether pork was cheap here. He said no: very few Iraqi butchers stock it, so it tends to be an expensive and rare treat. Yasir's father was a chef for Saddam, and the proud son knew something about the food business and about butcher's bills. "Beef is more expensive than lamb, and pork is more expensive than beef," he said. Then, with a grin, "but most expensive of all is American contractor."