The Backside of War

How I saved Iraq's modern art, and other confessions. A noncombatant's diary by P. J. O'Rourke: Why is Iraq so easy to harm and so hard to help? After eight days of war U.S. troops were approaching Karbala, sixty miles from Baghdad. Misery had arrived everywhere. But humanitarian relief had gotten only as far as Safwan and Umm Qasr, just across the border from Kuwait. Continue here. (The Atlantic Monthly, December 2003)