An ordinary Iraqi life

Living in fear is still the norm for Iraqis

Sat, Sep. 15, 2007
By LEILA FADEL
McClatchy News Service

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/story/238406.html

Before we (my so-called task force, a group of individual call-ups) came out here, we listened to some leaders talk about 'atmospherics', a seemingly nebulous collection of measures which included some assessments about how people out here 'feel.' I thought it was a good concept, breaking away from body counts, numbers of weapons caches captured, etc, which were great combat measures, but lousy measures for the results that a counterinsurgency would like. Atmospherics seemed like the right approach. I haven't seen or heard much about the atmospherics since I've been out here though. That may be because of my relatively isolated position and communications situation. So the atmospherics I gather are primarily through visits with the locals. Such as the ones that I work to get out of the country because they work for us and their buddy just got killed because he used to work for us. And this is in the peaceful south.