Back in Baghdad

We're back! It was a four 1/2 hour, hot drive home ... since Harb wasn't able to fix his window. Had a brief stop in Kirkuk to hang with Harb's Turkman friend. We started seeing the U.S. military presence (or atleast noticed it) about an hour south of Kirkuk. The checkpoints are cursory ... Harb explained that with so many different groups (U.S. Military, Iraqi Police, Iraqi Civil Defense Force, Iraqi Army, different Militias, Private Security aka Gun's for Hire), everyone is pointing the finger at everyone else as far as setting up effective checkpoints. We hit one private security checkpoint with absolutely no warning and I, atleast, sat up in my seat as they pointed their guns at us. But fortunately we made it into Baghdad with no problem ... just tired and wishing I could have stayed and poked around Kurdistan longer.