For the Baghdad office, the month of August was a whirlwind of ceaseless ongoing activity and planning for future activity. Following a Tribal Reconciliation Outreach trip to Amman, I scrambled to Istanbul for a few days of rest and relaxation and then rejoined the staff in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan, for the SENSE seminar conducted for senior members of Iraq's 18 Provincial Councils.

A couple of noteworthy snippets from Istanbul: while having the dust of Baghdad scraped off my shoes, the shoeshine noted that I was the first American he'd seen in a month—testimony to the fear Americans have of traveling in Muslim countries these days, even progressive ones like Turkey. Hunting down a ticket to Sulymaniyah, I committed the sin of clarifying my destination as "Kurdistan, Northern Iraq." The agent informed me that his shop didn't handle this route and directed me another one around the corner, adding politely but firmly: "But don't say you're going to Kurdistan—it's Iraq."

The SENSE training went off very smoothly, thanks largely to outstanding advance planning by USIP Iraqi staff members.

A couple of memorable moments for me personally: drifting down to the hotel lobby one evening to find a group of participants signing songs and reciting poetry accompanied by a guitar one of them had brought along. The wistful look of pleasure on their faces made it evident they hadn't done this in a long time. The following evening, our partner organization, Research Triangle International, hosted dinner in an amusement park restaurant. For many of our group—those from Baghdad especially—the experience of strolling outdoors at night at a venue crowded with families laughing, enjoying themselves free of worry about suicide attacks and car bombs, was a novelty. The loud crash of an aged nearby rollercoaster ride caused several of us to wince, resulting in a silent exchange of rueful grins.

Presented with an unexpected free day before departure, we arranged for a visit to the former Red Security Building, the notorious crimson-painted prison and interrogation center from which Saddam's henchmen enforced his grip over the population of Sulymaniyah. In 1991, during a popular uprising, Baathist officials holed themselves up in the fortress, opting to fight to the finish rather than surrender to Kurdish residents who had laid siege. After 36 hours, all 500 of the complex's defenders were dead. Once inside, the Kurds discovered torture rooms and an archive of photos, implements, and documentary evidence attesting to unspeakable crimes visited upon men, women and children. Today, this crumbling edifice, left largely in the gutted, bullet-pocked state in which it emerged, is a museum—an apt tribute to the brutal nature of Saddam's reign.

We ended the day and our visit to Sulymaniyah on a lighter note, with a brief but exhilarating hike in the hills around the city.