By the summer of 2004 most
roads outside Baghdad were unsafe for foreigners. But
one town gained a particularly nasty reputation. One afternoon
we got badly stuck in Mahmudiyah, a place where to show
you face is to invite imminent death.
Although I had never
been embedded I spent a few days in the US base at Sadr
City in the summer of 2004 with a sniper unit. One of
the snipers, Griff, had a remarkable story to tell.