ARTICLE: Big U.S. Bases Are Part of Iraq, but a World Apart, By MARC SANTORA, New York Times, September 8, 2009

A good glimpse of how it will be for the long haul in terms of presence in Iraq.

The usual details: nothing to do in off-time, the third-nation workers, and living apart from the locals by and large.

But until Iraq gets strong enough and stable enough internally, this will be the barely accepted (on both sides) norm.