Back in 2003, I became curious about the identity of a certain burning building shown in many news photos as the Iraq War began, and as a personal obsession, made a web page about it. The Building's identity was never fully resolved, and I just left it at that.

Early in September of 2004, I received email from a civilian contractor with the U.S. Special Forces, stationed in Baghdad - also looking for the identity of this building, since they have been stationed just a stone's throw away from it since late 2003. The email said, in part: "I have met hundreds of people (locals, military, gov officials) and no one seems to know for sure what that one specific building was for... I have heard the pyramid called Baath party HQ, Secret Intelligence, and too many others to recall".

The contractor stumbled across this web page, and sent along some nice photos, a couple stories, and allowed me to reprint them here. There are two small updates - a few more press photos, and the four large images from my new Pen Pal in Baghdad. The mystery is still not solved to my mind, but it's nice to see a couple more first-hand viewpoints, and some more-personal insight into life in Baghdad right now.

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