This neat military town lies 7,500 miles from Baghdad but drive west down the road into the desert and the landscape resembles western Iraq. The hazards are similar, too: roadside bombs, ambushes, suicide bombers, hit-and-run raids, kidnappings. Fort Irwin is home to the U.S. Army’s National Training Center, covering almost 1,200 square miles in the Mojave Desert. The base serves as the last stop for tens of thousands of U.S. troops before they ship out to Iraq and put into practice what they hope to learn here — how to fight ruthless and innovative opponents without creating new enemies from the civilian population and without taking sides in Iraq’s internal conflicts. Full Story