Lt. Col. Lawrence “Barrett” Holmes, a tall, lanky commander, bundled out of his cream-colored, armor-plated Humvee in flak jacket, helmet and protective eyewear, held his M-16 rifle at the ready and barked what goes for a command these days in Baghdad’s toughest neighborhood, what he calls his “slice of the pie.” “Salaam aleikum!” he belted out, Arabic for “Peace be upon you,” inflected with a South Carolina drawl. With those words at a sewage station, he got down to business, overseeing $138 million that is being spent in Sadr City, a vast warren of 2.5 million people that, twice this year, was the scene of some of the most intense fighting the American military has faced in Iraq. A cease-fire is now in place, and Holmes can talk like an engineer (his education) rather than a soldier (his training) — waxing on about the grade of roads, water runoff, sewage intake, trash disposal and dedicated power lines to pump stations. Full Story
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