My Precious

I was going to write about my trip out into the "Red Zone" now that it is a couple of days past and it is not an OPSEC issue, but all that has been overcome by an acquisition that occurred today. I must admit I am a bit leery about sharing this news because you will be jealous and I can't mitigate your reaction. If I was you, I would be jealous of me too.

The object of which I speak was discovered (and I'm not making this up) behind a vault door in one of the Freedom Towers buildings, in the old offices of the Energy Fusion Cell (Joe Schweitzer knows this place well). I had gone to the Freedom Towers with my Ops Officer, JP, to scrounge some furniture for my CHU but was about to come out empty handed. Everything had been tagged and turned over to a building manager and was no longer EFC furniture. Luckily, an "old EFC hand", Gerald, showed up to retrieve some computers and asked if we had looked in the secure area where his office had been. We had not because we didn't have the code to enter.

We opened the vault and I discovered a little thing I am calling - "My Precious":

I am now going to claim - and this is total fabrication - that it was a hallway table in Saddam's office that held his cappuccino machine and a bowl of mints. It is a hallway table and we can't know that it wasn't in his office, or that when it was (or wasn't) there, that it did (or didn't) hold a cappuccino machine and possibly a bowl of mints. Therefore, it was Saddam's cappuccino and mint bowl holding hallway table in his office.

Many of my blog readers have stopped reading by this point because of their intense jealousy (or perhaps boredom). Either way, I can not forgive them but will continue writing for those of you who care more about me than you covet "My Precious." You are good people.

The CHU must now be protected at all times because of My Precious. I am considering hiring a third country national to sit outside the CHU all day to protect this treasure. Maybe I can use one of the Peruvian guards who provide security to the NEC to guard it during his off time. The cost is certainly outweighed by the necessity.

I am also concerned about getting it home. There are certainly laws about taking a national treasure, such as this, out of Iraq. I fear that I won't sleep tonight from worry about people coming to take it, this concern about getting it home and the incredible burden placed on me to remove the vast amount of dust that has collected in all of its ornate nooks and crannies.

The slide show has new pictures of the CHU, with some close ups of My Precious.

The next blog will talk about my "Red Zone" trip unless something equally enthralling takes place.

The lions head just told me to go to bed. When My Precious speaks...