Free Republic

Jamie Francis has made two trips to Iraq, most recently in April when he and senior correspondent Susan Taylor Martin spent four weeks there looking at the war's effect on the country. On a warm evening in Baghdad's old Jewish quarter last month, I was taking photos in a crumbling building when I was literally pushed toward a Westerner with ivory skin and a red beard. He was lifting weights inside the Arnold Classic Gym. He wore black steel-toed boots as he grunted out exercises beneath dozens of portraits of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Iraqis called him Mr. Nick. I was...