QATAR-US-BASE

IRAQ-WAR-US-BASE: A US soldier passes in front of the operations office, where US Army General Tommy Franks directs the war in Iraq, at as-Saliyah US base, some 20kms south of the Qatari capital Doha 26 March 2003, with a US (R) and Qatari flags at the entrance. In Qatar, far from the action in northern and southern Iraq, troops assigned to the US military's forward command headquarters grapple with a combination of boredom and guilt as they chart the progress of the war on television. An estimated 3,000 US military personnel are stationed at Camp as-Saliyah, a sprawling complex of converted warehouses on a wind-whipped patch of scrub desert near Doha. AFP PHOTO/Nasser YOUNES (Photo by NASSER YOUNES / AFP) (Photo by NASSER YOUNES/AFP via Getty Images)