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The 600-member Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4, based at Naval Base Ventura County, received its orders in January to deploy to the Persian Gulf for the anticipated war with Iraq. With the Seabees every step of the way will be Ventura County Star staff writer Dani Dodge, a veteran reporter whose latest assignment has been covering law enforcement in eastern Ventura County. To get ready for this assignment, she has been writing about the Seabees for the past month -- in addition to preparing herself with everything from shots to camouflage outfits. Her stories about the men and women...

Editor's note: Ventura County Star reporter Dani Dodge returned last week after two months in Iraq and Kuwait with Seabees from Port Hueneme. This is her story. Second of two parts Task Force Mike entered Iraq the day after the war started. It took 24 hours to reach camp. During the drive, I stared into the darkness waiting for an Iraqi army to materialize. The Battalion 4 Seabees around me in the back of the Humvee, even the one with the M-16, were asleep. The driver shouted back that we were in the demilitarized zone, but the only difference I...

Some ideas on how to rebuild Iraq. WITH THE MAGNIFICENCE of a backdrop that only an American aircraft carrier could offer, President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln last week. But America's deft military campaign to liberate Iraq will not be considered complete or just in the Arab world without implementing an equally well-planned strategy and campaign to win the peace. The blueprint for winning the peace will revolve around bringing to life a federalist constitution that devolves power to Iraq's ethnically and religiously diverse people,...

First, let me explain: I don't camp, and when I did, flush toilets were always within an easy midnight walk. I subscribe to Bon Appetit and Cook's Illustrated and would never open a can of Chef Boyardee. I don't go outside without a shower and makeup. I have no military experience. Yet, I spent the last two months in the Middle East with the Seabees of Port Hueneme-based Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4; most of the time in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. We were in Baghdad before the city fell. Bullets flew over our heads. A land mine blew...

01 May 2003 Transcript: Powell on Spanish TV Thanks Spain for Coalition Support (Madrid, May 1: Secretary of State discusses Iraq, Middle East) (1900) Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Madrid May 1 to express his appreciation for the strong support that Spain provided to the coalition that liberated Iraq. In an interview on Spanish television, Powell said the Spanish people should be very proud of the stand their government took on the issue. "I know there was a great deal of concern and there was a great deal of popular opposition, but look what we've achieved: their...

BEFORE the start of the campaign to liberate Iraq, pundits and exiles had cast the Shiite community as an almost unconditional ally of the United States. Iraqi Shiites were supposed to be as keen to rise against Saddam Hussein as the so-called "Arab street" was sizzling to explode in his support. In the event, however, there was little or no uprising of the Shiites. Terrorised by Saddam’s machinery of fear, the community did not wish to repeat its tragic experience of 1991 when it rose and, abandoned by the US, was crushed by the regime. Less than two weeks after...

Before the war, French President Jacques Chirac huddled with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to plan strategy to undercut American efforts to enforce U.N. sanctions on Iraq. Part of the French-led strategy included sandbagging Secretary of State Colin Powell in a bait-and-switch private meeting to discuss terrorism. Actually, Powell was ambushed in an anti-war crossfire. This underhanded tactic left no doubt that Chirac was more interested in sabotaging the United States than in disturbing Saddam Hussein's unchecked tyranny. Despite its best efforts in the United Nations, NATO and the European Union, France ultimately failed to block a U.S.-led attack on Iraq....

KIRKUK, IRAQ – Seven years ago, a customer walked intoFalah Abdulrahman Mohamad Salih's television store and insisted on a barter: One of your televisions for one of my satellite dishes. Under Saddam Hussein, who kept an almost Orwellian lid on information, satellite dishes were banned. So Mr. Salih tried to hide the round, white saucer inside some laundry lines. A few days later at 4 a.m, security police came to his door and, with his wife and children crying, hauled him off to prison. The six grueling months there in 1996 makes these days all the sweeter. Salih was the...

Release Number: 03-04-209RECONSTRUCTION EFFORT UNDERWAY IN IRAQ AL HILLAH, Iraq -- Various military units, federal agencies, non-governmental and volunteer organizations are descending upon major areas of southern Iraq in a far-reaching humanitarian and reconstruction effort. The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force currently oversees the entire southern region of Iraq. Three major commands are performing the grassroots civil affairs work within the force’s nine governates —1st Marine Division, Task Force Tarawa and 1st United Kingdom Armoured Division. The 1st Marine Division is assessing the infrastructure of An Najaf and Karbala. Approximately 70 percent of An Najaf has water, 33 percent of the...

Well surprise, surprise. Documents found in the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service, show that Saddam Hussein's people were talking to Osama bin Laden's people, according to a story in the Toronto Star. Actually, make that "STAR FINDS DOCUMENTS LINKING BIN LADEN, IRAQ" -- at the Toronto Star, the Toronto Star is always the story. The minor detail that a reporter for the Daily Telegraph was also present when the documents were found, or that the crucial reference to bin Laden was spotted by their interpreter, played rather below the fold. Still, it is fortuitous that the Star,...

Not that it should come as a surprise to anyone, but it turns out some of the staunchest international opponents of invading Iraq -- on principle, you understand -- were up to their eyeballs in secret deals with the now deposed regime of Saddam Hussein. Since the fall of Baghdad earlier this month, documents found at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, at the headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service, Mukhabarat, and elsewhere around the capital have revealed just how deeply involved were those who sided against the war at the United Nations -- France, Germany, Russia, China and the UN itself...

Mocking la perfide Albion has been a national pastime in France for centuries, but the documents that are now being disinterred from the smouldering embers of Saddam Hussein's regime suggest that perfidy would be rather a polite word for the conduct of Jacques Chirac and the French government towards their allies. Elsewhere in today's Telegraph, Alex Spillius reports that papers found in the Iraqi foreign ministry show how, as recently as three years ago, French diplomats from the Quai d'Orsay were colluding with agents from IRIS (the Iraqi Intelligence Service, better known as the Mukhabarat) to frustrate efforts by the...

After a brief, almost bloodless war we have an ethnically and religiously divided nation. Mischievous neighbors on all sides can claim common cause with one or more of the major ethnic and religious groups vying for power. The largest ethnic faction has strong cultural ties to a powerful and expansionist neighbor, and is feared by other great powers nearby. Certain groups within the country are taking orders from religious authorities outside their borders in an attempt to impose a state reflecting their theology. Other nationalist radicals and many minorities are determined not to allow the creation of anything other than...

TONY BLAIR challenged continuing critics of the war against Saddam Hussein last night to judge the coalition by the way in which it helped to rebuild Iraq. After talks at Downing Street with José María Aznar, the Spanish Prime Minister, during which they had a telephone link-up with President Bush, Mr Blair urged opponents to wait before they made a final judgment. “This was a tough battle. It was always going to be,” Mr Blair said. “I do not disrespect anybody who took a different point of view. But what I always had in my mind was the nature of...

I have always greatly respected the ethics of Fr Oskar Wermter, though at times I may have disagreed with certain aspects of the Catholic dogma. His fearless and frank comments on the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe are an example to all of us. Last Maundy Thursday, I read his article in The Daily News proposing that war should be outlawed. Indeed, this is a noble aspiration and very few sane people would advocate war for the sake of war. Only the mentally unbalanced thirst after violence and war, and here the supporters and instigators of the much-vaunted Third Chimurenga come...

Fear of the U.S. Is the Beginning of Wisdom Exclusive commentary by Patrick Rooney Apr 21, 2003 Today and henceforth, I shall fill the peoples under all heaven with fear and terror of you. --Deuteronomy 2:25 Our current tour stop in the War on Terrorism is Iraq. And while we’re there, we’re letting Syria know we’re in the neighborhood, and wouldn’t be too inconvenienced to, ahem, “stop on by”, depending on their hospitality or the lack thereof. We’re speaking loudly too, to Iran and North Korea. Believe me, we now have the attention of every terrorist and terrorist sympathizer in...

<p>April 22, 2003 -- WHY do you think France, Russia and China sided with Saddam Hussein in the United Nations Security Council against the invasion of Iraq? Because their support was bought and paid for by the Iraqi dictator. Now, in the ruins of his empire, the question is whether the world will honor his promised bribes.</p>

<p>April 21, 2003 -- President Bush yesterday said Syria is "beginning to get the message" that it better stop playing footsie with Saddam Hussein's thugs - and turn over any Iraqis who fled across the border.</p> <p>Bush said there are "some positive signs" from Damascus after two U.S. congressmen met with Syrian ruler Bashar Assad and reported that he'd promised to expel all Saddam henchmen and not just the top 55 in the U.S. card deck of "wanted" thugs.</p>

With the Iraqi people dancing atop a dictator's fallen statues, the pundits who forecast an American bloodbath have begun to change their story. Implying that our military achievement wasn't all that grand, they tell us Saddam didn't even have much of a plan to defend his country. Absolute bull. Saddam had a classic 20th-century, industrial-age war plan. But our forces fought a 21st-century, post-industrial war. We have witnessed the end of an era along the road to Baghdad. Every other military establishment and government in the world witnessed it, too. We shall hear a great deal from think tanks in...

<p>Two U.S. congressmen were in Syria on Sunday, and said President Bashar Assad told them his government will not give asylum to Iraqis wanted for war crimes and will expel any Iraqis who cross into Syria.</p> <p>Reps. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif., were the first American officials to meet Assad since the recent escalation of U.S.-Syrian tensions.</p>