"Marine Capt. Sean Dunn spent almost a month cajoling courthouse officials in Al Kut for a detailed inventory of what they needed. He expected a laundry list, squabbles over financing and groans from his superior officers when he presented what he was sure would be a tome.
"So after weeks of this," Dunn said, "I get one piece of paper from Chief Judge Jahwher Mahood saying, 'I need a Thuraya phone, a car, a refrigerator and a TV.' And I said, 'I see, so these are the needs of a court system for 1 million people and some 200 employees?' "
The preposterous, personal nature of the request underlines some of the problems coalition forces face, and not just in Wassit province, southeast of Baghdad, where the New Orleans-headquartered 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines are in charge. Throughout Iraq, as the nation cracks through the totalitarian shell Saddam Hussein spent decades building, a reliable, trustworthy system of law and order is essentially being built from scratch..."
New Orleans Times-Picayune
4:54:35 PM 
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