Just to make that repair job a bit more surreal, while I was on my way there and back I was listening to the BBC on the radio. They were talking live with journalists in combat zones, who were yelling over the sound of artillery fire. At one point they had to retreat, and kept transmitting throughout.
This isn’t a bad sign about the war or anything like that – it just suddenly makes it very, very vivid that shooting is going on right now.
Sigh.
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 
Yes; Thursday morning (Iraq local time) there was an American CNN reporter standing across a small ravine from about 25 armed Iraqi soldiers, who were on guard for attack.
I couldn’t even figure out why they were letting him live, let alone broadcast.