Week 3, day 15, or, if you like, Sunday

Today I would like to give you all a lecture on the realities of security.

Some of you have kindly expressed concern that I may have been giving away so many details of my location and what I am doing here, that Johnny Arab, with a grudge against Me, the British, the Americans, the Oil Companies, the west in general etc. etc. etc. would be able to target me and rain down fire on me continuously until I went home.

Let me explain the reality.

a) I don’t use company names because I don’t want to put myself in a position where I could lose my job by breaching commercial confidentiality or generally saying anything that might upset someone and could be attributed to a particular company and traced back to me.

b) I don’t use peoples names for the same reason, and because they might not want me to publish their names on the internet for any number of reasons. (there’s at least one person here who’s wife doesn’t know where he is !)

c) I try not to take or use pictures of any of our Iraqi staff because they are in a very different position to us and if there was a targeted security risk to anybody it is likely to be them when they get home at night.

d) The camp we are building is 1km square and stands out like a 1km square camp with a 3.5m concrete wall around it in the desert……oddly enough. The locals travel from Basra on a daily basis looking for work and most of them are turned back by some of the tens of checkpoints that are manned by the Iraqi Police and the Oilfield Police, but some of them make it through by simply bribing checkpoints and are then turned away by the security company that are manning the site. There will be 3000 people on this site and it, and it’s location, as well as the oil field, are not a secret. Google Rumailah Oil Field if you don’t believe me. The local people see this as an opportunity rather than a threat and are unlikely to bite this particular hand.

e) The COB (Continuity Operating Base) where I live is roughly the size of Wellingborough, positioned next to the airport and bristling with high tech security. It’s not a secret either. Despite the high tech security, it was hit by a random rocket attack on Friday which we discovered today, were fired from 17km away. They did not read my blog and decide that they must lay down fire on the infidel. It just happens.

f) The armoured Landcruisers that we use are used by all of the 95+ Private Security Companies that are currently operating in Iraq. The are numbered on all sides with the security companies identification number and certainly the company that are contracted to look after us undertake constant PR by using Local Nationals as the majority of the force, but taking time to talk to people at checkpoints, by giving away water, for instance, to local checkpoints, as well as fruit and other goodies, because these guys are not looked after by their own people so we help out and get recognised as the good guys. We pass 3 or 4 convoys of these Landcruisers every trip we take, along with convoys of Iraqi police on patrol and US military on patrol. We are a long way down the pecking order for targeted retribution. We are also driving away from the centre’s of the trouble when we go to work - which is nice.

g) I have tried to point out where we are using local companies (everywhere), local management and skilled supervision (everywhere) and local labour. The only positions that are filled by Expats are the Project Management and the Private Security Companies, who use Expats to guard Expats and Locals to guard Locals which deals with the language and insurance problems.

h) I have google’d “A Month in Basra” and I can’t find it without knowing the address, so the only way that anyone outside of my friends and family, including my Facebook friends, could get the address is if one of you gave it to them. Therefore I conclude that it is not generally available on the web.

To sum up – if I get blown up here, or kidnapped, I would have had to be either incredibly stupid (which is a bit of a lottery I grant you, but I am trying – if it’s any consolation, I have some very fit and well paid people with guns, trying their hardest to make sure that I am not incredibly stupid) or incredibly unlucky (which whilst I can try and limit the opportunity for unlucky, I can’t do much about rockets fired occasionally from 17km away). If it’s any help, I am not aware of anyone being killed, injured or kidnapped here in the last two years which is not to say it won’t happen but it does give an indication that the threat is receding. Moving to the site camp where there is even less of a threat as I won’t be driving around for 3 hours a day and it is further away from what little trouble there appears to be, will help. The sooner I get there (Tuesday now looks likely) the better. It may look like a prison and it may present further hardships with respect to the weather but I think I will feel able to chill out a little bit.

I’ve got enough to worry about without having to worry about what you’re all worrying about although I am touched that you are all worrying !

Back to reality - I have been in the office all day today because, without revealing too much classified information, I spent half the night in the smallest room because my bottom wasn’t very well. I think this was more to do with the heat yesterday than anything more sinister but I didn’t fancy more of the same today so I am drinking water and energy drinks like they’re going out of fashion and I had scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast which seems to have settled everything a little. I have my interviews for my permanent pass tomorrow so I will be here again all day before supposedly packing (for the 3rd time) and moving out to site on a semi-permanent basis on Tuesday.

Today’s inventory:

3 cigars

0 units – there is, allegedly, some contraband floating about ready for the football tonight but I am less interested in the football than in having a drink so we will stick with nothing to drink !

0 Dollars spent – although we went for a coffee someone insisted on paying for me because he wanted a muffin, so I still didn’t spend any Dollars !

Weather – believe it or not we woke up to about 95% cloud cover – which was a shock to the system I can tell you. It burnt off during the morning, and when I asked one of our Iraqi Engineers if the clouds meant it was going to rain he just laughed and carried on down the corridor…..I don’t think he thought I was serious, but you have to ask otherwise you would have to wait for it to start raining !

Food – Nothing particular of note, except I went to the coffee shop on the base and had a decent cup of coffee in amongst the sandbags – surreal !



The Subway is next to the Coffee Shop and just struck me as oddly normal despite the sandbags. There is also an electrical shop, a general store (which sells cigars !), a gift shop, a tailors and a barbers in the same little area – a proper little oasis of excitement !


It has been very remiss of me not to have mentioned my family, who are dealing with the domestic emergencies and generously telling me all about them. I don't miss that side of family life but I do miss the rest of it - the knack is to try and forget about it until you can see the end, a bit like running, just count the steps, listen to teh music and try not to look at the watch.