"This is an economy-driven insurgency,"

a very interesting report from Boise Weekly chronicling the Idaho 116th Brigade Combat Team's tour of duty in Iraq. Worth reading from top to bottom. [Postcards from Hell: A two-week series about the year-long Iraq tour of the Idaho 116th Brigade Combat Team] excerpts: "The battalion that was there before us, the 1-27th Infantry, had 130-some IEDs go off against them during their year," Kincheloe says. "We had 900-plus." ~~~~~~ And when it comes to the enemy, Turnbow's story also reveals it's often not who we think it is. Who is the AIF? (Part One)

By using the vague acronym AIF ("anti-Iraqi forces"), the military concedes that there is no single, clear-cut enemy in Iraq. Sometimes the enemy is surprising.

Turnbow has a good idea who tried to blow him up last year in northern Iraq--and it wasn't someone on the usual list of Al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam, Islamists, jihaddis, Wahabbis, Baathists, Saddam loyalists or common criminals. His hunch is: "Colonel Faisal of the Iraqi Army. He's the battalion commander at Taza and an individual I worked very closely with," Turnbow says. "I was never able to substantiate that with enough proof to reel him in, but I think I came close."

As a former member of the Iraqi special forces, Faisal had the know-how to set up a car bomb; he had knowledge of Turnbow's movements; and, after two quick disputes with Turnbow involving a contract to feed the local Iraqi troops for a year, Faisal may have had sufficient motive. Turnbow says that Faisal created a side company and put in a bid, which was rejected because it wasn't competitive. Then Turnbow learned Faisal was strong-arming the winning bidder.

"First, I reject his bid on the food contract, then I have the nerve to inquire why my contractor is being shook down after leaving the gate and being paid. I think these factors led to his desire for my life," Turnbow says. ~~~~~~

"I went over there expecting Fallujah every day. [But] a lot of the job is a humanitarian mission," Kish says. "When we trained to go to Iraq, we trained to fight in the streets every day ... which gives you the expectation everyone you meet wants to kill you. And that's not true."

"The situation over there changes so much. It's so fluid." That training was outdated by the time they arrived, Kincheloe says. ~~~~~~

"This is not a war, it's a police action," Turnbow says. "We [National Guardsmen] tend to talk more to people. Active duty rolls into town and they lay down the law. I think it gives more of an occupation feel ... I don't think the populace felt so occupied when we were there."

Yet noting the bomb attack on himself and the 900-plus against Task Force Griz, Turnbow says, "No matter how much good you do, you're always the Sheriff of Nottingham." ~~~~~~

Is There Progress?

"You ask me a question I ask myself every day. I want to know how my story ends," Turnbow says. "To be honest, I'm not sure how to answer."

There may no longer be a nation of Iraq, he senses, noting that Iraqis cheer the misfortune of countrymen from a different sect or ethnicity. "It took a tyrant like Saddam to hold it together," he says.

After a year of funding Iraqi Army and police projects, Turnbow believes nothing will change until Americans take their checkbook and leave, forcing Iraqis to act on their own.

"We are treating this like a colonial power," Kincheloe says. "Drop the lines and let the people split up into three states."