By Todd Pitman
I.
RAMADI, Iraq (AP) - Marine Capt. Andrew Del Gaudio walked down the battered staircase, past the dusty American flag strung from a wire fence in the hall, past the windows crammed with sandbags that obscured daylight and the world outside.
In the ground-floor corridor of Government Center, Marines rested on cots and worn sofas, some smoking in silence as they waited to head out on mission.
The building complex houses the office of the Iraqi governor of Anbar province, and is such a magnet for insurgent attack it shakes with incoming mortar rounds or rockets just about every day.
