IZ

My office is in one of the many mini-compounds within the IZ. I think I show my badge about four times to armed guards; luckily I don't have to bother with the pat-down and the metal detector that those without certain badges must go through. Concrete t-walls and sandbags line nearly every pathway I travel. I have a 'commute' of about 1000 yards, from within the Embassy compound where my trailer is to the Freedom Tower compound where the PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) is based. My vehicle is inspected for bombs and sniffed by dogs nearly every time I park it. It never leaves the IZ, like the thousand or so other SUVs here. The parking lot looks like a Ford dealership, and an Explorer looks tiny in the company of all the oversized models like Suburbans and Expeditions. Every morning a line-up of dozens of local workers stand outside the Embassy access gate, waiting for their individual inspection by the security guards. The current group is from Peru, I think. Contracted through some security company and overwatched by Embassy security. The main IZ gates are manned by a combination of US and Iraqi forces. Significant inspection procedures are in place for all persons and vehicles that enter the IZ. Some Iraqis get preferential treatment based on their status. Such latitude has been constrained in light of recent events.