We'll just Need to Scan Your Eyes for Our Files
Imad Salman Ichleef, 37, was questioned yesterday by American soldiers about insurgent activity in his neighborhood of Ghazaliya in baghdad. Using a biometric recording device, one of the soldiers scanned Mr. Ichleef's retinas, collected his fingerprints and photographed his face. The interview was part of a strategy to put Iraqi males into a database. Mr. Ichleef's family waited patiently so they could get back to their lunch. [the full NYTimes caption to the single photo printed by the paper on April 7]

Because I had been unable to find his image on the NYTimes website or anywhere else, after doing a post about it yesterday I emailed Ashley Gilbertson asking if he could help me find and link to one.

Today I received a generous reply. He began with: "I'm out in the badlands right now so can't talk." He attached these four awesome images to an email which was probably sent from Iraq.

Wow.

He wrote that he had no idea which photograph the paper had used [it was the third, and it appeared in black and white].

Thanks, Ash.

A memoir of Gilbertson's experience in Iraq, "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War", is being published by the University of Chicago Press and is due for release November 1.

[images from Ashley Gilbertson, with my thanks to the NYTimes for its custom]