Reporters on the Job

• Open for Business: How quickly can Georgian bureaucracy reconstitute itself after conducting a wild "Rose Revolution"? The Monitor's Scott Peterson found out during a visit to the parliament Tuesday, just three days after demonstrators had stormed the place (page 1). Instead of just slipping through the gate as he did on Sunday, Scott found Tuesday that all the usual security measures had been restored.

First there were the X-ray machines, then two separate identity card checks. Finally, Scott and his translator were given small "receipts" that had to be signed by the person they were meeting - the same time-consuming measures in place before the revolution.

• Study in Contrasts: Baghdad doesn't feel like a city under siege, says World Editor David Scott, who recently returned from a trip to Baghdad (this page). Traffic is heavy. Businesses are bustling. There's construction going on. But then come the reminders that, for brief moments almost every day, there is conflict.

"A pair of Bradley Fighting Vehicles can be seen occasionally sliding into a traffic rotary, and the goggled machine gunner on top is crouched over his sights, swinging his weapon at this target and that. Or, you'll be eating dinner or breakfast, when a thump, thump, thump can be heard in the distance," says Dave. "One night, we climbed to the hotel roof, looking for signs of where the mortar fire was heading. We could hear it but couldn't see it. As one CPA official told me a few days later, 'When it's sustained fire, you know it's us going after the bad guys.' In this case, it was an empty warehouse being pummeled."

Amelia Newcomb
Deputy world editor