The boy, the guns and the bombs

The little boy, 6 or 7 or 8, held the brass dish of wrapped hard candies above his waist. He knew he was standing next to a red ribbon stretched across the road for a reason. Probably a good reason, since there were so many men with guns and uniforms and helmets and sunglasses.

Suddenly the band on the other side of the ribbon struck up an oompah brass sound as white SUVs pulled up and braked, thickening the dust in the air which was already making him blink.

A man in a maroon beret, flanked by many other men, flicked a small wave at the boy, passed by the candy and marched on.

The boy seemed not to know what just happened. Before he could think too much about it, a man--maybe his father or uncle, also in uniform--clapped him on the back. With two or three other men in uniform, they strode away from the dangling ribbon. They were all smiling and speaking loudly to the boy, so he must have done something right.

The candy-less man in the maroon beret was an Iraqi general, Qassim Ata, and he was inspecting, for the press, a half-acre of weapons and other deadly things seized from insurgent weapons caches in Sadr City. The slum of more than 2 million people was not far away from the weapons display. "We are doing our best--Iraqi special forces and the United States Army--to make Sadr City a simple place of peace," he thundered through a microphone.

Added Maj. Gen. Jeff Hammond, gesturing at the rows and lines of death-dealing devices behind him, "This is a splendid example of what happens when they [the Iraqi army) get after it." The general also was impressed by how a lot of the weapons caches were found: "They were located by civilians, who helped us turn the information into actionable intelligence."

More than 1,000 AK-47s, automatic rifles, lay on the concrete. Hundreds of mortar tubes. Rocket-propelled grenades, rockets and grenades separated. Tables full of two-way radios and other electronic gear to detonate homemade bombs. More than 8,000 items in all were found and hauled away, some of them too deadly to show off to the press.

Most chilling: rows of containers resembling 5-gallon cans of tomatoes or spaghetti sauce or yeast. But these had contained a witches' brew of ball bearings, nails, even shotput-sized orbs of iron. Welded or moulded on top of the cans was a concave copper top, itself weighing about 5 pounds. "That [the can] houses the projectile," explained Capt. Brandon Wallace, who studied ordnance and explosives as his specialty five years before this war began and he suddenly could apply his classroom expertise along the roads and streets and highways of Iraq. "The copper plate goes into the vehicle--the biggers ones for bigger vehicles or tanks."

These explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) have been added to the insurgents lethal acronym arsenal of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and VBIEDs (vehicle-borne IEDs--car bombs).

EFPs are often hidden inside specially designed concrete blocks.

Arabic was written on one can. Just as World War II airmen used to write sweethearts' names and insults on the bombs they dropped on Japan and Germany, an insurgent wrote his name, Haidr Adan, on the side; on top, according to a translator, he "was asking for help from God to kill people."

The experts cite a critical calculus: 13 or more pounds of explosives = vaporization. "Anything less than that and you feel it," observed one U.S. major.

Of most importance to Americans is the fact that the Sadr City operation was mostly an Iraqi deal. The U.S. role "was very limited," Hammond said. "We simply advised in a limited way to the Iraqi leadership on the planning and execution of this operation."

But the chiseled soldier wouldn't be lured into any "turning the corner" talk, let alone lights at the ends of tunnels: "I take one day at a time. Each day is better than before. The glass is half-full."

Maybe the reason I paid so much attention to the little boy with the candy, amid all the lethal tools, was a conversation I overheard in the MRAP (mine-resistant ambush-protected) armored vehicle we rode to and from the exhibition. A young Mormom from southern Utah, Sgt. Whitney Houston ("It's pronounced like the street in Manhattan, sir ['How-ston']," he told me later. "I don't know what my parents were thinking."

BS-ing with Ghazi, an NBC producer from Jordan, the sergeant was talking about his little boy and another one on the way: "It's awesome, really cool," he said, as the 50-caliber machine gunner swiveled in a turret, only his legs and butt visible, between us. "He's so fun to come home to. It's the happiest I've ever been. Kids produce the happiness."

Yeah. Now I'm sure. That's why I paid attention to the little boy with the candy.