"Outside the Wire"

Outside the wire is a term we use for leaving the FOB. It involves, obviously, taking a risk, venturing out where IEDs, VBIEDs, drive by shootings, ambush etc. Are waiting.
And then there are the crazy Iraqi drivers who don't know the word stop! in English or their own language!
Give them an inch and they will create four lanes of traffic.
When we arrive at our work site, we close down all lanes of traffic. What a rush! It would be like closing down I-70 into Columbus during the early morning rushhour. And there are no ifs, ands or buts about driving through our cordon. Stop. Now.
We went through one town, the worst I have seen yet. We drove through raw sewage running in puddles in the street. Power lines hanging low enough to endanger the gunner standing in the hatch. Rocks being thrown by children and the threat of a sniper on every roof top.
The streets were lined with garbage and rubble the entire way, and the smell...well.. it is indescribable. Hovels for homes, barely tall enough to stand in, and everyone surrounded by a wall, everyone a potential fortress.
What is seared in my mind is the level of poverty.
Again, the question forms in my mind, just what did Saddam do with all that so called money? Waste it, is what he did. He did not build a country, he destroyed it.
Critics cry out that we are not doing enough, fast enough. How can you when a country has been neglected for so long? To my eyes, the evidence is clear, the neglect has been going on long before we were involved. Probably back in the 80's when Saddam decided to go after Iran.
Then there was his rule. His policy of evil and hate. Absolute power does corrupt absolutely.
By the way, when we returned to the FOB, I kept checking the soles of my boots. I smelled something, and then I realized. The stench was in my nose, I was still smelling that town we drove through...