An e-mail from a CPA civilian in Baghdad regarding 1) last night’s Green Zone gunfire and 2) U.S. military driving private contractors around. Re: the gunfire: “I saw it myself, but it wasn’t anyone storming the gates. The guards told us right then that Iraq had just then beaten Saudi Arabia in soccer, and the city erupted in celebratory gunfire. It was very impressive because what we saw were red tracer bullets. Some people were outside even before it ended looking for souvenir bullets….”

RE: military drivers: “When I checked your site this morning I saw the post about the military escorting contractors. I come into this late, but who is complaining about whom? In my four months I haven’t seen that. The consultants to our ministry have their own security. In fact, I went out with their security one time and preferred it because at least their SUV that trip was armored. We may have humvees front and back but our big Suburban in the middle is soft. We have other contractors who are integrated into the CPA staff. These contractors do go out with our military security, and that makes perfect sense. Some might in fact prefer to get away from the high profile risk of being seen with humvees and Explorers, but we couldn’t get our work done if we made distinctions over who could or could not jump in a vehicle and sent some off to take taxis to meetings.”