A soldier from 720th MP company plays guitar in front of a heavily fortified trailer on Camp Victory between missions training police in west Baghdad.
The streets of Mansour have no names anymore. They are identifiable not by what is there now but by what used to be. In the center of the neighborhood, our armored humvee circles around the crater that once held a 20-ft.-tall statue of Abu Jaffar al-Mansour, the 8th century founder of Baghdad; it was pulverized by a homemade bomb in 2005. To keep their bearings, the troops have taken to identifying routes by the names of 1980s heavy-metal bands. We drive down Bon Jovi, where the barbershop used to be, and pass Skid Row, which had the best falafel in town....
