We stopped to see a military building left over from Saddam’s regime. The building had two stories, awas about a quarter mile long on each side, and inside was a large unroofed parade field. The corners were circular rather than squared off or rounded off. The corners had small windows, actually firing ports, and inside it was simply a hall way wide enough for soldiers to standand shoot. Looks like the building was intended to serve as a fortress.
The building was one of three we saw in a long valley; "a vast agricultural plain" as it was described to us. A high ridgeline overlooked the valley, and peaks on the ridgeline were topped with bunkers. As far as I could see in either direction, bunkers stood out against the blue sky. Apparently the buildings were headquarters for a couple of battalions or regiments, and the bunkers formed a type of Maginot or Seigfried line. The valley served as an open field of fire for invading Turks, or Americans for that matter, to cross, and Saddam had set it up to protect the oilfields on the other side of the ridge.
The buildings we saw were topless, thanks to the US Air Force, but the ground floor was pretty much intact. Except for having been looted of every single thing you can imagine; widow frames, doors, wiring, plumbing, everything but the walls and the paint on the walls was gone. Everything except a couple of rooms of filthy uniforms and boots strewn among the rubble.
It didn’t look like we attacked the bunkers on the Saddam Line, but they are so exposed that the Air Force could take them out easily if necessary. The bunkers look pretty cool, marching along the skyline into the vast hazy distance, but wouldn’t be very useful against US armed forces. Bunkers are good only for line of sight engagements, and Army artillery could rubble them from over the horizon. And then bounce the rubble, if they chose to.
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