The three hotels in this suburb of Basra, the largest city in southern Iraq, are always full. "We don't have tourism here," says Jabbar Mubarak, the clerk at the Bourj al-Babil, Zubair's largest hotel. "Everyone who comes to our hotel comes to visit their sons."

The "sons" are in Camp Bucca. A half-hour's drive from Zubair toward the Kuwaiti border, Bucca is the U.S. military's largest detention center in Iraq. It currently holds about 18,000 Iraqis, the majority of those in U.S. custody. An additional 3,000 are at Camp Cropper at Baghdad Airport.

Here's a Pulitzer-sponsored piece from Sunday's Washington Times.

This wasn't the best trip for blogging, since it was much easier to work than it was last year. (Less time locked in hotel means less time for blogging.) On the bright side, we have about 50 hours of video to sort through and edit.

Tomorrow morning Rick and I will take the land route out of Iraq, rather than risk being grounded at the airport by the dust storms that have marked much of our trip. It will be the first time I've driven out since 2003.

All the rooms are full at the Bourj Babel Hotel outside of Basra. Every guest is there to visit a family member inside of the US detention facility at Bucca.

At 3:30 AM minivans take them out into the the desert where they wait at the first gate until it opens at 7 AM.

All the rooms are full at the Bourj Babel Hotel outside of Basra. Every guest is there to visit a family member inside of the US detention facility at Bucca.

At 3:30 AM minivans take them out into the the desert where they wait at the first gate until it opens at 7 AM.

There is no electricity and the town is dark. Oil flares light the sky. Bucca burns on the desert floor like an alien city.

Our driver to Basra was playing this song on the trip.

As the sun came up on a recent morning in the district of Sadr City, Iraqi army troops searched as many as a thousand houses, arresting a dozen suspects and collecting nearly 50 unregistered weapons.

Four months ago, these streets, some too narrow for Humvees, were controlled by the Jaish al-Mahdi, a Shi'ite militia whose name in Arabic means the Mahdi Army, which in 2006 poured out of Sadr City and took over large parts of Baghdad.