The operations officer for 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment and, later in his tour, the commander of Charlie Company, Captain Bill Coryell and his unit arrived in Iraq in January 2005 and spent the next year based in the Tisa Nissan area of east Baghdad, which he describes as a "sad, dirty, violent place." A veteran as well of the major combat phase of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM - during which he served as executive officer of 1-64's Headquarters and Headquarters Company - Coryell initially discusses the transition to stability and support operations. The bulk of the interview, though, focuses on his OIF III experiences and covers, among other topics, working with neighborhood advisory councils, the "intelligence black hole" that existed, the phenomenon of insurgent forces - which represented a miniscule percentage of the population - making "the road networks of Iraq their engagement areas," and the influence exerted by mafia-type elements in their sector. "The real power belongs to the mobsters that extort, run drugs, sell the booze,” said Coryell. “They have the prostitutes and they shake people down for protection money. It’s no different than the mob run amok and those are the people right now that have the power because it’s so local. There is no real standing government,” he added. “It’s the mobsters that run things day to day.” In great detail, Coryell relates the myriad difficulties and frustrations of dealing with Iraqi civilians and explains why his battalion in a year was not able to “catch one person on the street emplacing an improvised explosive device,” which he likens to “a cop in a drug infested neighborhood not catching one single crack dealer.”

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