In pictures: Iraqi lives through a lens

Young Iraqi men pose at their shoeshine stall in the central market in Basra.

"It could be argued that now the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein is dead and gone these people feel happy and safe for me, a soldier, to take their pictures.

"Perhaps they want to be recorded and documented as having lived free to express themselves, to have made a choice based on free will and not fear.

"Alternatively perhaps, like us, they just like having their picture taken!"