Can Iraq Be Fixed?

July was supposed to have been, at long last, a good month for the U.S. effort in Iraq. A new unity government was fully formed and at work. The feared terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi was dead. And U.S. and Iraqi officials had launched a new security plan to stanch the bloodshed in Baghdad. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Rather, Baghdad in July has been wilder and more dangerous than ever, engulfed by a wave of targeted assassinations, reprisal attacks, and mass kidnappings. When Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited Washington last week, the air was not celebratory but instead one of crisis. The primary outcome: a decision to increase the number of U.S. troops in Baghdad.

That news is distressing to those Americans already restless to bring troops home and may fuel doubts among some who want to see the job through. The Iraq venture has claimed the lives of more than 2,500 U.S. soldiers and marines and cost upwards of $300 billion. Yet, the political debate in Washington seems strangely divorced from reality. Several Democrats call for a withdrawal timetable, as if victory can simply be scheduled. Republicans, led by the Bush administration, pledge that America will stay until the job is done, without making clear what, exactly, that means or how long it may take. In the end, neither side really faces up to the most fundamental questions: Is there really a way out of Iraq that will not send the country into deeper chaos? Will America be able to leave an Iraqi government behind that can survive and sustain itself? And how many more years will U.S. troops need to be in Iraq to get to that point?

The underlying problem is evident: A speedy withdrawal is the surest way to plunge the nation into a full civil war, but staying longer carries a high cost without necessarily improving the odds of success. "Leaving too soon would have enormous potential downside--that this unity we are trying to build could unravel, that sectarian violence could escalate," Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, tells U.S. News. "That could bring in other powers on opposite sides, therefore expanding the war to places outside of Iraq. Terrorists could take over a region like Anbar and use it as a base to threaten the world." Wayne White, who was the State Department's top intelligence analyst on Iraq, shares those worries, but adds, "What we don't know is what the odds will be one, two, five years from now."

Workload. If the near-term perils are clear, the definition of success is harder to pin down. On one level, it hinges on leaving behind a capable Iraqi government. This entails not only reliable security forces but also a government that can supply those troops and deliver basic services to the Iraqi people. Today, these tasks require deep U.S. involvement--and it will take much longer for Iraqis to pick up the workload than the Bush administration or most political leaders in Washington are willing to admit publicly. "To build something that can outlast us, we're talking about being there at least another five years," says Sen. Joseph Biden, who returned from his seventh trip to Iraq in July. "If we were doing it well and we had a little luck, we could be there in a circumstance where we are not dying but we are spending."

The United States is also wearing out the tools it needs to win. The U.S. military is straining under the burden of keeping 130,000 troops in Iraq, even as commanders in many sectors say they cannot afford reductions. U.S. money is running out, too. The $21 billion in reconstruction aid from Congress is almost all in the process of being spent. And few on Capitol Hill are eager to come up with more, even though Iraq's needs--$100 billion to build a modern infrastructure, according to World Bank estimates--far outstrip its own oil revenues.

When U.S. troops first headed toward Baghdad in the spring of 2003, the Bush administration offered soaring rhetoric about forging a model democracy that would help transform the Middle East. That dream might not be dead yet, but the Bush administration has been gradually defining down success. "The standard is not going to be 'no violence,'" Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, tells U.S. News. "What you can hope for is an Iraq where there are effective security forces that are controlling and taking responsibility for security throughout Iraq and where the marriage of political leadership and security forces is sufficient to deal with insurgents and terrorists so that it does not interfere with the operations of government." But even this more tempered definition of victory might not be achievable--leading some to say the United States should just back off. "I argue it is easier to work with the reality rather than try to put back together a country that for its entire 80-year history has been a failure," says Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. diplomat who has advised Iraq's Kurdish leaders. He advocates allowing the Kurds to go the final mile to form their own independent state in the north, while tolerating a Shiite Muslim theocracy in the south. But even Galbraith, author of the new book The End of Iraq, concedes there is no easy way to draw the lines. "There is no solution to Baghdad," he says, "other than this awful civil war."

Baghdad, home to nearly a third of Iraq's population, is the key to Iraq. "It's the largest Sunni city, the largest Shiite city, and the largest Kurdish city," says Andrew Krepinevich, at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank. "It's a variation on that old phrase about New York: If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere."

Not all the news in Iraq is bad. The unity government has held together so far and is beginning to tackle some thorny issues. Oil exports have hit a post-invasion high, while electricity in Baghdad is finally on the upswing. The insurgency appears to have been at least temporarily weakened in the wake of Zarqawi's death. Even U.S. casualties dipped in July. In the view of the White House, this leaves sectarian violence as the major obstacle. "If we can get beyond that challenge," says a senior administration official in Washington, "we feel pretty good about the progress we're making on other things."

But the street violence has become so endemic in Baghdad that many experts have been debating whether or not the country is already in a low-level civil war. Regardless of the answer, the sectarian strife has the potential to tear Iraq apart--and is now seen as a bigger danger than the insurgency. The sectarian fighting broke out into the open after the February bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, but it had been building for many months. Bullet-riddled corpses, and an alarming number of headless bodies, turn up on the capital's streets daily.

Now, the death toll is huge and getting worse each month. Iraqi statistics show that over 14,000 civilians were killed in the first half of this year--in June, it was more than 100 per day, even after the launch of a Baghdad security plan that was supposed to reduce the carnage. The resulting spiral of violence is threatening any remaining trust between Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites. As a consequence, a growing number of Iraqis are fleeing their homes in mixed neighborhoods. The United Nations reports some 150,000 Iraqis have been displaced, which is almost certainly too low an estimate. Quietly, some in Baghdad are beginning to call it ethnic cleansing. "It is both alarming and underreported," says a western diplomat in Baghdad. "It is conceivable that most of Baghdad will become ethnic enclaves--it is getting there pretty quickly."

Behind closed doors, U.S. officials are telling Iraqis that they need to deal urgently with the problem of militias--both those inside the police and those run privately by Shiite leaders. For Maliki, this would mean confronting some of the same Shiite leaders who helped bring him into office. "There is not indefinite time to do this," says a senior U.S. official in Baghdad. "This sectarian killing eats at the fabric of the basic compact between the three communities."

If there is a bright side, it is that for the first time, this pattern of violence is not exacerbated by the presence of U.S. troops. Indeed, U.S. soldiers have been one of the few brakes on the killings. But the lines are getting blurry for U.S. troops, who increasingly find themselves caught in the middle. "There has been a shift in how coalition forces are received in predominantly Shiite areas due to their belief that we now favor the Sunnis because we tried so hard to bring them into the democratic process," says Maj. Mark Cheadle of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division, responsible for security in Baghdad. "Neither side, in general, seems particularly enthused with our aiding the other sect."

Security Forces. One desperate need, of course, is for capable security forces that reflect Iraq's sectarian makeup. But a graduation day last April at Camp Habbaniyah training center remains a demoralizing and cautionary tale. Some 1,000 newly commissioned Sunni soldiers from the insurgent-ridden Anbar province were parading before the review stands filled with proud U.S. and Iraqi military officials. Suddenly, the highly anticipated ceremony fell apart. The graduates started "taking off their uniforms and throwing them on the ground," recalls Col. Lawrence Nicholson, who commands Marine Regimental Combat Team 5, which trains Iraqi security forces in western Iraq. "It was ugly." They had just learned that they would not be serving, as they expected, in their hometowns because of leadership concerns that locally recruited graduates would be more likely to collaborate with the insurgency.

At the time of the walkout, some military officials downplayed the event--one spokesman called it "a momentary but very brief display of displeasure" involving "a very small number" of graduates. In reality, fully three quarters of the class quit the military in the weeks that followed. "We cannot sustain this level of attrition," says a senior U.S. military official, who estimates that the Iraqi Army needs 20,000 recruits in Anbar province just to make its goal of 6,500 new soldiers.

Nationwide, the Iraqi Army has grown substantially in size--up to 113,000 soldiers. But many of the units are still not fully integrated, and few can operate without U.S. support. The Pentagon has touted the handover in July of Multhanna, one of Iraq's most peaceful provinces, to Iraqi security control. But even Nasier Abadi, deputy chief of staff for the Iraqi armed forces, concedes that not a single Iraqi Army battalion is ready to operate independently.

Coaching. Within the Pentagon, many officials privately agree with the assessment of retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who in a widely circulated memo estimated that the United States needs "at least two to five more years of U.S. partnership and combat backup to get the Iraqi Army ready to stand on its own." What's more, he added, the "corruption and lack of capability of the ministries [of defense and interior] will require several years of patient coaching."

It is patient coaching that is meant to come from hundreds of transition teams throughout the country, in which U.S. military trainers are embedded with Iraqi Army and police units--teams that are widely considered to be the linchpin in America's exit strategy in Iraq. But though these vital military transition teams are billed as handpicked, elite units, the forces are too often "cobbled together," according to a defense official who has studied the teams. Indeed, one U.S. military report concluded, "The Army could do better to screen [military transition teams] for proper qualifications in skill."

Marine trainers in Fallujah tend to agree. "We're not really set up to train other people to be policemen," says one marine. The teams often report feeling undertrained and overwhelmed. One senior Pentagon official estimates that, throughout the country, Iraq is short U.S. military training teams "by a factor of four or five." President Bush seemed to acknowledge the shortfall last week, when he called for more U.S. military personnel to be embedded with Iraqi units to make them "more effective." What's more, the transition teams all too often lose institutional memory as U.S. trainers rotate to new assignments. In one team that was training an Iraqi Army battalion, seven of the dozen marines volunteered to extend their seven-month tour to one year in order to build on the progress made with their military counterparts. But their requests were denied, according to their commander. The marines were told they were needed by their home units, which were facing manpower shortages.

In addition to requesting more trainers, U.S. defense officials have for months been privately lobbying for better equipment for the Iraqi Army. "Clearly, we can't withdraw from Iraq unless Iraqi security forces have a clear-cut advantage over the forces they're dealing with," says McCaffrey, who has called for more light armored vehicles, mortars, artillery, and air support capabilities for Iraq's military. But some military officials express grave concern about what would happen to U.S.-provided equipment should Iraqi security further degenerate. "It's the question of the century: How much of our technology to give them, considering the possibility that the country could degenerate into civil war," says one Army Forces Central Command official. "How much ends up six years down the road in Iran? What if we give them all new technology, and they use it against each other? What capabilities should we give them?"

An even bigger problem is the Iraqi police, which a senior Pentagon official estimates is basically three years behind the Army. Training has been spotty, and many units are known to be riddled with militia members. In Baghdad, Shiite death squads are deeply embedded in the Shiite-dominated police force. "When are you going to be able to send the police force into central Baghdad and not have people think they are coming to kill them?" Senator Biden asks. In Sunni areas, insurgent forces have infiltrated the ranks. At the same time, in places like Fallujah, local police face being tarred with a U.S.-collaborator label. Concerns about retaliation are ever present. "If we push them to do an obvious coalition mission," says a U.S. military trainer, "they threaten to quit."

Recruiting has been so frantic over the past two years that many of the current officers have not even been vetted. In recent months, Iraqi and U.S. officials went back and fingerprinted every police officer serving under the Ministry of Interior and began comparing them to past police records. "We have already identified approximately several thousand people currently employed by the Ministry of Interior and the security forces who come under it who have criminal records," says David Everett, a retired U.S. colonel who served as an adviser for the Interior Ministry until last April. Their crimes ranged from petty to violent. "In the very near future," Everett says, "many of them are going to be discharged."

Logistics. Training soldiers is only part of the battle. An army must also be supplied, transported, and, perhaps most important, paid. "It's much easier to teach a bunch of guys how to fight than to give them a logistics system," Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking commander in Iraq, tells U.S. News. Supply lines between Iraqi battalions and the Ministries of Interior and Defense remain, in many cases, nonexistent. "The Iraqi Ministry of Defense is nothing but a facade for the American logistical operation," says Kenneth Pollack, a former Iraq analyst for the CIA now at Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy. "If you withdraw American support, they would be completely incapacitated in a week or so." Basics like boots and bottles of water, too, are strictly rationed, when they are supplied at all. "Trying to get something as simple as a tire and a jack from the [Defense Ministry] is a nightmare," according to one U.S. military transition team member. One Iraqi battalion in Fallujah, for example, was allotted three bottles of water per soldier per day--not nearly enough for them to conduct their daily three or four foot patrols, which can run four hours each.

Other logistical failures--like the lack of maintenance regimens or paying soldiers late or not at all--have also handicapped the Iraqi Army. A regular paycheck is a key reason recruits sign up with a force that is already viewed with suspicion. "They don't get paid, and they go home on leave and tell that to all their buddies," says one U.S. marine in the region, where marines with one regiment become so concerned about this trend that they began offering $100 in cash to every Fallujah soldier with a late paycheck.

Police face all kinds of shortfalls. During a daily meeting in their office at the main police station in Fallujah, marines run down complaints from Iraqi police officers: "We try to get them to patrol," says one trainer. "They'll say, 'Well, we can't patrol because we don't have gas.' We want them to go out and fight insurgents. They'll say, 'Well, we can't fight because we don't have bullets.'"

The American military trainers worry, too, about the Iraqis' dependence on them. Lt. Gen Martin Dempsey, in charge of training Iraqi security forces, uses the analogy of the teeter-totter. "On the one side is the ability of our Iraqi counterparts to absorb what they need to, and on the other side is the danger that they will become dependent on us," he tells U.S. News. "My job is to look at every aspect of this mission of training and determine when is the right time to transition control over to the Iraqi side. If I do it too soon, it tips, and if I do it too late, they become so comfortable and dependent--it's literally too difficult to encourage their capacity for them."

Civilian government. Another barrier standing between Washington and withdrawal is the ability--or lack thereof--of Iraq's civilian bureaucracy to function on its own. U.S. advisers serve in all key Iraqi ministries, which also rely on American logistics, support, and guidance to deliver basic services. "It appears here that the ability of the government of Iraq to support any of the functions normally associated with a national government ranges from extremely limited to nonexistent," says a western diplomat in Baghdad. "The key ministries--finance, oil, electricity, justice, water resources, etc.--show no signs of being self-sustaining." His candid rundown: the Ministry of Trade is hobbled by corruption "at all levels," and the Housing Ministry shows no signs of independent activity.

Just as in the military logistics area, U.S. officials have stepped in frequently over the past three years and supplied Iraq's critical needs directly, rather than build up the government's ability to operate. In several recent reports, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq has warned that U.S. efforts to build up Iraqi capabilities to run their own programs, including the state-of-the-art infrastructure projects funded by Washington, have been lacking.

U.S. officials say that they are now more focused on building Iraqi capacity. But SIGIR and others remain concerned that the U.S. effort is still falling short, in part because the civilian effort is understaffed. "They need the same degree of hands-on training and help for their civilian bureaucracy as they need for their military to be stood up," says Senator Biden. "But they don't have anybody to do that."

Politics. There is one saving grace. U.S. officials believe that a majority of Iraqis still want to make their new government work. These days, the White House strategy is centered around a basic premise--harnessing oil revenues as the strongest (and perhaps the only) force holding the country together. In public, Bush has hinted as much: "My advice to them is to use their energy assets as a way to unite the country." Iraqi political leaders, however, have yet to resolve how, exactly, the revenues will be distributed.

The failure to move beyond the rhetoric is part of a larger pattern. While U.S. officials have largely been pleased with Maliki's public statements, they are growing impatient waiting for him to take stronger action. Washington is counting on the Shiite prime minister's national reconciliation plan to help defuse both primary sources of violence in Iraq--the Sunni insurgents and the Shiite militias. "We've moved from a strategy where we thought military force would stop the violence and the political process would follow," says Noah Feldman, a law professor at New York University who served as an adviser in Iraq in 2003. "We now are hoping that the political process will move enough to stop the violence."

On the Shiite side, Maliki has yet to move strongly toward dismantling the militias. He also needs to reach out to the alienated Sunni community. But the central element of the Sunni outreach has also been delayed indefinitely. In a key compromise to encourage Sunni participation in the last election, Shiite leaders promised to hold a conference as soon as the new government was formed to consider amendments to the Constitution, which was drafted almost entirely by Shiite and Kurdish politicians. Sunni leaders are looking for key concessions that could boost their level of influence in the central government. This conference, however, has fallen off the radar screen in Baghdad and will not take place until the fall, meaning it could easily stretch into next year.

It is not clear how long Iraqis will wait. "They haven't polarized to the degree that everybody feels that the only way out is through fighting," says Dana Eyre, a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace who served as a U.S. adviser in Iraq. "It's like Thelma and Louise heading toward the cliff. We can see the edge, but we haven't gone over it yet."

Baghdad Calms As Troops Go Back On Patrol

HEAVILY armed American troops have returned to some of the most violent areas of Baghdad, patrolling the streets and setting up checkpoints in an attempt to regain control of the city and quell increasing sectarian violence.
Their return sparked fierce criticism from opposition leaders but was welcomed by many ordinary Iraqis desperate for peace after months of murderous violence between rival militias.
US soldiers in tanks and armoured vehicles have moved back into many parts of the capital handed over to the Iraqi police last March after the opening of the country’s new parliament.
Yesterday proved to be one of the most peaceful days in months with no deaths reported in the capital by late afternoon, although two Sunni mosques were raked by gunfire which injured a guard. In contrast, an average of 100 people have been dying in sectarian attacks every day in Baghdad.
The increased American military presence represents the first stage of a plan to send up to 5,000 extra troops to the city, which is beset by car bombs, kidnappings and suicide bombers.
Last week Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, ordered 3,500 soldiers to stay in the country up to four months beyond their scheduled departure.
American officials had tried to place more responsibility for policing Baghdad on Iraqi forces but the policy unravelled as death squads fought for control. The movement of US troops back on to the streets is a tacit acknowledgment that the strategy of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, has failed.
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most influential Shi’ite leaders, delivered a fierce attack on the Iraqi government’s policy at a rally in Najaf last week.
He accused the government of “carelessness” and “wrong policies” and said that Iraq’s security forces should be in charge of stabilising the country. He added that the violence was due to “being lax in hunting down terrorists and upholding the wrong policies in dealing with them”.
His remarks, made to a rally of thousands of supporters, seemed intended to destabilise Maliki and whip up opposition to US troops. But on the streets yesterday it was clear that ordinary Baghdad residents welcomed the relative security that the US forces brought with them.
In Jihad, a suburb in the west of Baghdad notorious for clashes between Sunnis and Shi’ites, residents say they feel safer since the American soldiers returned last week. They have set up checkpoints which are moved every few hours for safety and carry out regular patrols in armoured vehicles.
Many of the mainly Sunni residents say they were frightened of the police and have welcomed the return of the US army.
“We used to say we wanted the Americans to leave because we could look after ourselves; now we want the US army back to stop people being killed,” said one.
Another said: “We can see the American convoys again. For the first time in months I feel that it may be safe to leave home.”
A Sunni resident said that they had spoken to the soldiers who had promised to protect them.
Outside Baghdad the violence continued. A car bomb exploded in a residential district of Kirkuk, about 180 miles north of Baghdad, yesterday, killing four people and injuring another 13, police said. It was the fifth car bombing this month in the city, where tensions are rising among Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen for control of the area’s vast oil wealth.

Inside The Mind of Saddam's Chief Insurgent

Former deputy Deputy President Izzat al-Douri, America's most wanted Iraqi fugitive, tells TIME why the insurgents won't join the political process
By Aparisim Ghosh, Baghdad
Iraq's Ba'athist insurgents have no intention of joining a political process that was "manufactured by and serves the occupying force," the highest-ranking figure from Saddam Hussein's regime still at large has told TIME Magazine. In an exclusive written interview — his first to the Western media — Izzat al-Douri said the Ba'ath Party will continue "to mobilize and bring together the energies of the people for the fight to expel the occupation."
A national reconciliation program aimed at drawing elements of the insurgency into the political process is the cornerstone of the current Iraqi government's efforts to stabilize Iraq. And despite the government's insistence that there will be no amnesty for former regime leaders such as al-Douri because they are accused of crimes against Iraqis, analysts in Baghdad say the reconciliation program can succeed only if the Ba'athists come in from the cold. But while al-Douri signaled a willingness to negotiate, he insisted the Ba'ath Party would first need to see the U.S. announce a timetable for withdrawal of troops, the formal recognition for the insurgency, and the reinstatement of Saddam's army, which was dissolved in 2003.
Al-Douri, the former Vice-President — the "King of Clubs" in the U.S. deck of cards naming the Saddam regime's most wanted figures — is among several Ba'athist leaders believed to be hiding in Syria, under the protection of the regime of President Bashar Assad. He is believed to be in poor health, possibly suffering from stomach cancer. Nonetheless, al-Douri said the Ba'ath Party has been restructured under his leadership as a "revolutionary, struggle-oriented" organization, in which he plays an influential role.
A U.S. official in Baghdad familiar with Sunni politics confirmed that claim: "He's still in charge, still dedicated to a return of Ba'athist dictatorship," said the official. Although U.S. and Iraqi sources say there have been contacts, usually through intermediaries, with the party's leadership, they insist there can be no deal with al-Douri. "The only thing we will discuss with him is his surrender," says the U.S. official.
TIME's questions were sent to al-Douri in May through intermediaries, and it's not exactly clear when his written answers, delivered in Arabic and authenticated by trusted sources, were composed — the fact that they refer in the present tense to the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi suggest they were written before Zarqawi was killed in June. Al-Douri praises the Qaeda man's "courage, the strength of his faith, and the sacrifices of his fighters," but rebukes Zarqawi's advocacy of mass sectarian killing of innocents.
Asked about the country's new government, al-Douri said he respects those in the political process who oppose the presence of the U.S.-led coalition force — a reference to Sunni politicians who have been outspoken critics of the U.S. military presence — but urged them to quit the process "because they and the agents, traitors, and spies who are with them are incapable of offering anything to the people while under the occupation. "
In a rare admission for a senior Ba'athist, al-Douri said the Saddam regime had blundered in its military strategy at the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion. Rather than allow the Iraqi military to confront the coalition forces in open combat, he believes the leadership "should have husbanded the army's strength and means till the second page had been turned." Still, he claims that Saddam's military bounced back, suggesting that elements of the old army are responsible for 95% of insurgent operations against coalition forces.
Al-Douri also claimed to have sent President Bush a letter, "via a friend in the official Arab circles," after the December 2003 capture of Saddam. In it, al-Douri says he warned Bush that the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq would turn the country "into a world center for terrorism and the manufacture and export of terrorism in its many different forms." Al-Douri said he wrote Bush: "I know that you are courageous, and courage calls for a decision to withdraw immediately from Iraq."
The U.S. official in Baghdad was unable to confirm that such a letter had been received by the White House, but didn't rule it out, saying, "there are a variety of channels through which [insurgents] reach out." However, he added, "considering the source, I don't think such a letter would have been given much credence."
Insurgent Ba'athist In His Own Words
TIME: Does the Ba'ath Party still have a role in Iraqi politics?
Izzat al-Douri: If you mean the current political process, the Ba'ath Party rejects it, because it was manufactured by and serves the occupying force and is destructive of our country. The political role of the Ba'ath in the struggle [against the occupation of Iraq] is to mobilize and bring together the energies of the people for the fight to expel the occupation and liberate our country.
TIME: Do you hope to return to Baghdad as a free man?
Al-Douri: I have great hope and supreme confidence that, through the agency of God, and of the mighty people of Iraq and its heroic fighters, I shall return to Baghdad on its liberation from the grip of the occupation.
TIME: How sound is the infrastructure of the Ba'ath Party, and what is your influence over it?
Al-Douri: The Ba'ath Party has undergone an internal shake-up, restructuring its base and leadership on struggle-oriented, faith-based patriotic and nationalist principles. It now has a revolutionary, struggle-oriented identity and has shaken off the dust of the past. I constantly exercise influence on it to remain pure, patriotic and dedicated to struggle.
TIME: What is your opinion of the new Iraqi government? Are there any persons in that government in whom you trust?
Al-Douri: Yes. I respect all individuals who have not been polluted by crimes against the Ba'ath and the Iraqi people, whether they be with the political process or outside of it. I respect even some inside the government — and they are not a few — whose intention is, as they say, to reduce the damage done by the occupation to the citizens and to alleviate their sufferings, or to carry on the struggle for the liberation of Iraq from inside the political process, though this is a form of wishful thinking. My advice to them is to boycott the political process because they and the agents, traitors, and spies who are with them are incapable of offering anything to the people while under the occupation.
TIME: We've heard that there are a number of attempts at negotiation between some Ba'athist organizations and the United States. Are these negotiations carried on with your approval? If so, what progress has been made? If not, under what conditions might negotiation take place, whether with the United States or with the Iraqi government?
Al-Douri: The Ba'ath's position on negotiations, especially with the American and [British] sides, is clear. It rests on principles that cannot be prejudiced or impaired by any individual or party. They are:
1. Recognition of the resistance in all its forms — Islamist, patriotic, and nationalist — any group whose aim is to liberate Iraq from the invasion forces.
2. An announcement of withdrawal of U.S. forces, without restriction or condition.
3. Complete cessation of raids, round-ups, and operations involving killing and destruction.
4. Release of all captives, detainees, and prisoners.
5. Restoration of the [old] army and national security forces.
There have been no negotiations with the Americans, merely attempts by the American side to make contact with the Ba'ath Party and to negotiate with it in order to draw it into the political game. Similar attempts have taken place with other anti-occupation parties. No dialogue will take place — with any party — that is not on the basis of these principles. Any party that does not abide by these principles will fall into the swamp of the political game and that of grand treason. The Ba'ath is ready to negotiate with the Americans on the basis of these principles at any time they choose.
TIME: What is your opinion of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? Is he working for or against Iraq? [The question was sent in March, three months before al-Zarqawi's death.]
Al-Douri: I participate with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in his belief in faith and the unity of God, but I differ from him fundamentally in the style, method, and path through which he expresses his faith. Our religion is the religion of submission to God, and of peace, security, safety, freedom, self-liberation, truth, justice, progress and coexistence. Those who are recalcitrant or take up arms and stand in the way of Islam's civilizational and humane course — as the American administration, its agents, henchmen, and spies are doing — we are ordered to fight such people by the Koran. In accordance with our faith, we only fight the occupation forces and their treacherous apostate agents who fight us. I harbor great respect and appreciation for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and I rejoice in his courage, the strength of his faith, and the sacrifices of his fighters, [but] I call on him and his fighters to direct their jihadist struggle against the enemy that has invaded the land of Arabdom and Islam. Let none of us be drawn into the occupying enemy's game of igniting hateful sectarianism. I also affirm that any exposure of citizens and their assets [to harm] will inevitably serve the occupation.
TIME: Some of the jihadist groups active now in Iraq claim to be applying the Taliban model of an Islamist state. Would such an outcome be acceptable to you?
Al-Douri: The Iraqi people will never be ruled by sectarianism or by sectarianists. The one who governs Iraq, with all its diverse elements, with all its national groups and sects, must do so on the basis of the freedom, democracy, and human rights that our noble religion guarantees.
TIME: Did Iraq possess weapons of mass destruction? If not, why did the government of Saddam Hussein not make that clear?
Al-Douri: This story about Iraq's possessing weapons of mass destruction is a lie of the American administration and its intelligence services, that they fed the American people and the world with the aim of occupying Iraq.
TIME: Why did the Iraqi army not put up much of a fight against the U.S.-led Coalition forces?
Al-Douri: After its entry into Kuwait, the Iraqi army had been stripped of its strength; the American administration and its allies went to extreme lengths to do it harm and to destroy its structure. Thereafter, it was under tight U.N.-imposed sanctions for 14 years. [At the start of the war] it faced aerial bombardment by the two greatest powers in the world supported by all the world's evil forces. Had it not been for certain strategic and tactical errors, the army's performance would have been better than it actually was. It was one of the greatest mistakes of the Iraqi leadership to accept formal engagement to the end of the road, despite the amazing disparity of forces. Had the leadership husbanded the army's strength and means till the second page had been turned, Iraq would have been liberated and the occupation ended long before today.
It is the Iraqi army that today is in charge of the planning and supervision of more than 95% of patriotic resistance operations against the occupation.
TIME: What do you think of the trial of Saddam Hussein? What do you believe the outcome will be?
Al-Douri: The trial of President Saddam Hussein and his comrades is a farce. The outcome will be what America wants it to be, not that demanded by the law and the judiciary, and not that wanted by the Iraqi government of agents and spies.
TIME: Do you expect a complete withdrawal of American forces from Iraq in the near future?
Al-Douri: I do not work for a conventional withdrawal of America from Iraq but rather for the victory of the resistance — the forced withdrawal of America from Iraq. My hope is that America will withdraw before it collapses so that losses on both sides may be minimized, and so that there will remain an opportunity for the people of Iraq to construct normal, broad, deep, and effective relations with America on the basis of independence, freedom, self-liberation, and the shared legitimate interests of both parties. Iraq, like all countries of the world, cannot do without legitimate mutual relations and joint cooperation with America in all fields of life because of the latter's vast resources, especially in the economic, technological, and developmental spheres. We understand the role and strategic interests of America as a great power. However, such relations must be on the basis of freedom and independence and the right of men to choose the way of life that they want, as well as of lack of interference in the internal affairs of others or of tutelage.
TIME: Have you in the past met any of those who are now in the U.S. government — for example, Donald Rumsfeld, who visited Iraq in the 1980s?
Al-Douri: I did not previously make the acquaintance of any of the American leadership but I had very high hopes of President Bush before his election, which I had hoped for — unlike that of Clinton. I expected that he would make a courageous and chivalrous President of the greatest state in the world and that he would carry in his heart all those values and principles — of freedom, democracy, and human rights — that his country promotes.
But the American administration has committed crimes in Iraq that will never be forgiven; the crimes that are being committed today in Iraq contradict completely all the principles in which the American people believe and which they wish for the world. The occupation troops, and especially the Americans, have committed thousands of massacres in all parts of Iraq, of old men, women, children, and civilians. They have destroyed tens of thousands of buildings, farms, factories, and other real estate.
I wrote to President Bush at the start of the occupation and after the capture of President Saddam Hussein via a friend in the official Arab circles. After painting a clear picture of the course of the killing and destruction, I warned him against the outcome of pursuing this path and of its dangers, for America, for Iraq and finally for the world as a whole. I pointed out to him that America's enemies would come together in Iraq from every place in the world to take revenge on it and that Iraq would be transformed into a world center for terrorism and the manufacture and export of terrorism in its many different forms. Then the mighty people of Iraq would rise up, and America would lose much and regret what it had done. I said, "I know that you are courageous, and courage calls for a decision to withdraw immediately from Iraq." Now everything that I mentioned has been realized.

Saddam In The Hospital

BAGHDAD (Reuters) -
Saddam Hussein was being fed through a tube on Sunday after 16 days on hunger strike and an Iraqi official said he will not attend court on Monday.
"To avoid a deterioration in his health he was taken to hospital for medical attention and food was given to him through his mouth," chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi told Reuters. "He will not be able to attend the session tomorrow."
A U.S. military spokesman said Saddam was not in critical condition.
"Saddam Hussein continues to maintain his hunger strike and is voluntarily receiving nutrition through a feeding tube. His condition is constantly monitored by medical personnel and is not life-threatening," he said.
Saddam lawyers accuse the U.S. military of force-feeding the ousted leader, whose hunger strike has added to the chaos of his trial, which is approaching its conclusion.
The U.S. military says the 69-year-old ex-president has been drinking sweet coffee and liquid nourishment and receiving psychological counseling to try to persuade him to eat.
Saddam and his co-accused are on trial for the killing of 148 Shi'ite men and teenagers after an attempt on his life in the town of Dujail in 1982.
He is also awaiting trial in August for genocide against the Kurds in the late 1980s under the so-called Anfal campaign.
The Dujail trial, which U.S. and Iraqi officials had hoped would project a new image of democracy in postwar Iraq has been marred by the killing of three defense lawyers.
Saddam and his half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti have often launched tirades in the chamber in a trial which saw the resignation of the first chief judge in protest over what he called government interference.
Saddam's chief defense lawyer accused U.S. military authorities of force feeding the toppled president to make him end the hunger strike.
"The U.S. military are force-feeding the president to break his will and end his hunger strike to protest against the trial and its illegality," Khalil Dulaimi told Reuters in Amman.
Dulaimi said he had held a three-hour meeting with Saddam on Saturday to confer on defense tactics in which a decision was taken to boycott Monday's session. He said he had found Saddam in good health, despite a weight loss of several kilograms.
"They have clearly exhausted all means at their disposal to convince him to end the strike and now they are resorting to force ... this is a gross violation of his rights."
Saddam, who was absent as the U.S. backed court heard final arguments in defense of two minor co-accused, said he had boycotted the session to protest against a decision to convict him through unlawful proceedings.
Dulaimi said the defense team would boycott Monday's session in protest at the court's refusal to meet their demands for a fair trial.
"After all our legal demands that represent the minimum for a fair trial have been refused, the defense team decided to continue its complete suspension of its attendance of the trial sessions," he said.

An Unusual Day Here

Today has been quite an unusual day. According to news reports, it is a tit-for-tat arguent between Shites and Sunnis. It is now 12:45a.m Sunday morning and I was just awakened by the 10th explosion that has rocked the Embassy compound today.

I guess today isn't a day for good news.



BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two American soldiers were killed Saturday in Baghdad, seven Shiite construction workers were gunned down and five Sunni civilians were blown up, deepening the capital's security crisis. Shiite politicians called on the prime minister to cancel his visit to Washington to protest Israel' sattacks in Lebanon.
One U.S. soldier died in the second of two roadside bombs that exploded in east Baghdad at mid-morning. An Iraqi civilian was killed by the first blast, police said. Another American soldier died Saturday evening when gunmen attacked his patrol with small arms fire, the military said.
The seven Shiite workers were killed and two were wounded when gunmen opened fire on a construction site near Baghdad International Airport, police said. Later Saturday, a mortar shell killed five civilians at a market in the mostly Sunni neighborhood of Amil in west Baghdad, police said.
The violence appeared to be part of the tit-for-tat reprisal killings by Sunni and Shiite extremists which have led to a dramatic deterioration of security in the Iraqi capital.
Two rockets also blasted the heavily guarded Green Zone, which includes the U.S. and British embassies as well as major Iraqi government offices, but the U.S. military said there were no casualties.
U.S. troops also reported killing 15 gunmen in a three-hour firefight in Musayyib, 40 miles south of Baghdad.
With violence rising, the United States is moving to bolster American troop strength in the Baghdad area, putting on hold plans to draw down on the 127,000-member U.S. military mission in Iraq
The security crisis in Baghdad is expected to figure prominently when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki meets President Bush at the White House on Tuesday. U.S. officials are expected to push al-Maliki, a Shiite, to move quickly to calm sectarian tensions and abolish Shiite militias blamed for much of the violence.
But the visit comes amid rising anger among Iraqis over Israel's attacks in Lebanon, launched after Shiite Hezbollah militiamen seized two Israeli soldiers.
On Saturday, the Fadhila party, which is part of al-Maliki's Shiite alliance, urged the prime minister to call off his visit.
"Fadhila demands that the prime minister cancel his visit to the U.S. in solidarity with the Lebanese people and over what is going on there, the disasters due to the Zionist aggression amid international silence about these crimes," party official Sheik Sabah al-Saiedi told The Associated Press.
Despite public anger over Lebanon, the Shiite political establishment has too much to lose politically by risking its ties with the Americans over the fate of Hezbollah.
Nevertheless, al-Maliki, a former Shiite activist who spent years in exile in
Syria has condemned Israel's offensive and has complained that the United States and the international community have not done enough to stop it.
Al-Maliki told reporters he would convey that message personally to Bush.
"The hostile acts against Lebanon will have effects on the region and we are not far from what is going on in Lebanon," al-Maliki said. "We will speak with the United Nations and American government to call for a cease-fire quickly."
Al-Maliki spoke following the first meeting of a government committee formed to reconcile Iraq's disparate sectarian and political groups, but differences emerged immediately between top Shiite and Sunni officials over the issue of amnesty for insurgents.
Al-Maliki told reporters that despite his proposal for amnesty for some insurgents, "all those whose hands were tainted with blood should be brought to justice."
But the Sunni speaker of parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, snapped back, saying that "if we punish a person who killed an American soldier, who is an occupier, we should punish the American soldiers who killed an Iraqi who fought against occupation."
Most of the insurgents who have been fighting U.S. forces are Sunnis. The United States and the Iraqi government have sought to reach out to selected insurgent groups in hopes of convincing them to lay down their arms.
In other news Saturday:
• 10 Iraqi soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb struck a convoy in Karmah, west of Fallujah in the insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, police Lt. Ahmed Ali said.
• Three people died and five were injured in a bombing and shooting in the market in Baqouba, where U.S. forces killed five civilians the day before. The U.S. military expressed regret over the civilian deaths and blamed extremists for putting civilians in danger.
• An American soldier died Thursday of a non-combat related injury, the U.S. military reported. He was assigned to the 43rd Military Police Brigade.
• One civilian was killed when masked gunmen attacked Iraqi police in Mosul, and three gunmen died in an a separate firefight with police there.

Marines Help Build, Save School

Thanks to the work of Marines and Iraqi security forces, 800 elementary-aged girls will now have a school to attend this fall.

Marines from 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment unveiled a brand-new grade school in this city of about 30,000 on the Iraq-Syria border in western al-Anbar province on July 7.

About one week before its ribbon cutting, insurgents planted an improvised explosive device inside the school that would have leveled a good portion of the building, destroying nearly three months of work by Marines and locals, said Gunnery Sgt. Joseph S. Mallicoat, team leader for the civil affairs team here.

"The bomb had the potential of taking down both wings of the building and the school would have been unable to open by September," said Capt. Rick Bernier, commanding officer of Company C - the Marines responsible for providing security alongside Iraqis in this city.

The Marines discovered the bomb and secured the building leaving Iraqi security forces to provide 24-hour security. The bomb was later disarmed.

Local tribal leaders and sheikhs attended the school's grand opening and expressed thanks to the Marines of 3rd Civil Affairs Group, who obtained the necessary manpower to reconstruct the building.

Civil Affairs teams oversee funding for a variety of reconstruction projects in the region which bolster Iraqis' quality of life while improving the economy, said Lt. Col. Larry L. White, the civil military operations center director for the Al Qa'im region.

The team spent nearly two years finding a contractor to complete the project. The school was destroyed in 2003 during heavy fighting between Marines and insurgents, according to Mallicoat, 33, from Vancouver, Wash.

"I want to thank the Coalition forces on behalf of all of the people of Karabilah for finishing the school very fast and for supporting the construction of a fine place," said Mohammed Ahmed Selah, mayor of Karabilah.

The mayor and the Marines agree that the school's neighborhood is relatively safe, although there is still the threat of IEDs, according to Bernier.

"The bomb was a last ditch effort by insurgents to destroy the progress we've made in this area," said Bernier.
Since arriving here four months ago, the Marines have seen a decrease in enemy activity. The Marines have also introduced the city to their new police force and have begun conducting security operations alongside policemen.
The Marines say local Iraqi security forces have made significant progress in the past few months by providing security and conducting several independent operations.

"We are capturing more of the bad guys with a higher level of expertise in IED-making and that leaves a lot of insurgents with minimal experience in making the bombs," said Bernier. "One guy blew himself up last week trying to plant an IED."
Tribal sheikhs expressed pride in the region's new police forces during a visit by al-Anbar provinces' governor to Husaybah last week. Gov. Maamoon Sami Rasheed al-Awani, echoed their sentiments.

"The security in this region has changed for the better," Awani said. "Without the work the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police are doing here, we would not be able to move forward with construction projects."

The city of Karabilah opened their first police station last month after a three-year hiatus of policemen. More Iraqis are coming forward to join local police forces.

Of the 400 Iraqi males who showed up during a police recruiting drive last week in al-Qa'im, more than 100 were accepted for police boot camp - the largest turnout yet.

First Province Under Total Iraqi Control

SAMAWAH – Coalition forces handed over responsibility for al-Muthanna province in southern Iraq to the provincial Iraqi government here on Thursday.Coalition officials said the province was ready to handle its own security and governmental responsibilities. It is the first of Iraq’s 18 provinces to achieve this status. More than 1,400 troops from Britain, Australia and Japan will move out of the province by the end of July, said Maj. Gen. Kurt A. Cichowski, Multi-National Force - Iraq deputy chief of staff of strategy, plans and assessments.The more than 600 Japanese troops who worked reconstruction duties in the province are already preparing to go home, while British and Australian forces stationed here are slated to move their operations to other parts of the country beginning next week.Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki attended the event and said the transfer of responsibility was the beginning of a new era for Iraq, one that will “bring joy to all Iraqis.” He promised unwavering government support to the province of more than 500,000.“We promise to give you what you need to fight the terrorists,” he said.Cichowski, who was responsible for many of the efforts leading up to the transfer, and British Maj. Gen. John Cooper, commander of Coalition forces in southeastern Iraq, were also among those present.“We came not as conquerors but as liberators,” said Cooper, who touted al-Muthanna as a peaceful, hardworking province. “Multi-National forces will be available to you if you need help, but I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said to the crowd. Policemen, local tribesman and Soldiers from the 10th Iraqi Army Brigade danced and pumped their fists in celebration of the province’s autonomy. Women and children waved Iraqi flags as a flock of birds were symbolically released.Cichowski said the Iraqi brigade’s 1,800 Soldiers have been accredited with the highest level of training by Coalition forces and that the quality of training was a major factor in turning the province over.He said the competence of policemen in the province was another deciding factor.For the last four months, the local police force has run the Provincial Joint Operations Center here. The center’s role is similar to a 911 call center in the United States, enabling the police to react swiftly to emergencies and tips from citizens.A provincial SWAT team has recently completed its training, adding more security capability to the more than 3,000 policemen already patrolling al-Muthanna.“First one down, 17 to go,” Cichowski said. The criteria for the transfer of provincial authority are; threat, governance, security capabilities and the province’s relationship with the Coalition. Cichowski said al-Muthanna met all of those requirements.“They’re ready,” he said.

Progress Is A Mixed Bag

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Clean water should flow to 80 percent of Fallujah's homes this fall, and by summer's end a planned wireless network will provide phone service and Internet access to thousands, a technological leap unimaginable just months ago.

But mounds of rubble litter the city, electricity is available only four hours a day, and an estimated 50,000 people out of a population of about 300,000 still have not returned 18 months after Fallujah was destroyed in an American assault to wrest control from insurgents.

Progress is mixed in Fallujah, the symbol of anti-American resistance until U.S. troops barreled through the city in November 2004 in the most intense urban combat of the Iraq war.

Improvements have come, but slower than expected and on a smaller scale than planned.

City officials are still asking for more money to pay laborers to haul away seemingly endless piles of rubble. Still, U.S. officials say substantial advancements will become apparent this fall to the residents who have returned.

"By the end of the year, that's when we'll see the turnaround," said Maj. Angel Ortiz of San Pedro, Calif., who oversees projects in the area for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "After all these years of planning, that's when it's going to pay off in their eyes."

Officials are looking forward to the completion of a multimillion-dollar water treatment project they say will deliver clean water to 80 percent of Fallujah's homes.

By the end of September, officials say an $8 million wireless telecommunications project could activate 15,000 phone lines in the city. New, modern handsets will then be handed out to families that once had phones lines.

"This phone service will come with Internet. You can stick an Ethernet cord in the back of the phone and voila," said Lt. Col. Carl Friedrich of Washington. If the project works, it could be extended to other cities in western Iraq.

Overall, $192 million has been allocated to more than 100 complete or ongoing projects in the Fallujah area, Ortiz said. Also expected to be approved are $50 million in projects.

About 90 percent of projects have experienced delays, Ortiz said.

Though more than $30 million has been spent on the city's electricity grid, available wattage may not increase because there aren't enough power plants, said Capt. Richard Donnelly of Atlanta, a Marine who helps manage reconstruction projects.

U.S. officials have proposed at least $30 million more to improve the distribution system, but none of it to build more power plants, meaning power levels will remain stagnant.

Other parts of the city's infrastructure have suffered because of power shortages. Many water pumps in the city rely on electricity to disperse water to homes.

When a generator at one of the city's largest hospitals recently broke down, engineers complained the entire facility was without power for over a day. Even an infants ward was left in the dark.

"The No. 1 need is electricity. All other projects come after this. The electricity that we have now is not enough," said Najim Abdullah, chairman of the Fallujah City Council.

Progress also has been slowed because remnants of the insurgent force still operate in the city, although at a far lower level than the days when gunmen roamed the streets and insurgent commanders ruled.

Iraqi engineers said insurgents target U.S.-funded projects but have largely spared those funded by the Iraqi government.

U.S. commanders also hope other goodwill projects will boost confidence in the new government and U.S. reconstruction program.

Three new clinics were recently completed, and four new schools that can hold about 1,500 children are due to open this fall.

"The city has progressed a lot, but it's still behind the rest of the world," Abdullah said.

Al Sadr

The very "Insurgent", Al Sadr mentioned in thi article has been recently appointed to a cabinet position within the new Iraqi Government.

Iraqi and U.S. troops arrested a commander of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia and clashed with militants in the cleric's eastern Baghdad neighborhood yesterday, an apparent attempt to crack down on militias that have fueled sectarian violence across Iraq.Adnan al-Unaybi, a top Mahdi Army leader, was arrested at his home near the central city of Hillah. Al-Unaybi allegedly engineered two roadside bomb attacks against multinational forces this spring, spied for Iran and smuggled weapons into Iraq, including SA-7 surface-to-air missiles, the U.S. military said.In another morning raid, in Baghdad's impoverished Sadr City neighborhood, Iraqi troops backed by U.S. aircraft killed or wounded 30 to 40 militants in a 43-minute firefight that culminated in the arrest of another insurgent leader. The U.S. military did not name him.The Sadr City slums are controlled by Sadr's Mahdi Army, the cleric's Shiite militia, which mounted two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004.Militias like Sadr's remain one of the biggest roadblocks to securing Iraq. Shiite militias are believed to be responsible for kidnappings and executions of scores of Sunni Muslims, perpetuating the sectarian conflict that threatens to plunge the country into civil war.Some of those militias have links with the Iraqi government's Interior Ministry. This week, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a revamping of the country's 160,000-member Facilities Protection Service, which is supposed to secure infrastructure and public institutions but has been linked to kidnappings and assassinations.As part of his sweeping reconciliation plan aimed at restoring peace to Iraq, al-Maliki called for the dissolution of the militias. Their members should be absorbed by Iraq's security forces, the prime minister said, but he has yet to lay out how he will accomplish that.Indicted for the murder of a rival Shiite cleric in 2003, Sadr now wields considerable political influence. At least 30 members of parliament are Sadr loyalists who belong to Iraq's leading Shiite political bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance. He has legions of followers among Sadr City's 2 million residents.The U.S. military said the man captured in the Sadr City raid oversaw several insurgent cells in Baghdad responsible for roadside bomb attacks and car bomb blasts directed at Iraqi and multinational security forces. He is also responsible for the slayings of two Iraqi soldiers, the U.S. military said, and is linked to a "punishment committee" that carried out vigilante acts against perceived enemies."What we're doing is targeting individuals responsible for insurgent activity, regardless of what their affiliation might be," said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson.A top Sadr aide, Sahib al-Aameri, denounced the Sadr City raid and said it resulted in the deaths of six innocent Iraqis."We strongly condemn what the American forces and a brigade of the non-patriotic Iraqi army did last night," al-Aameri said. "The Iraqi government and the parliament members are responsible for this crime."No shots were fired in the raid that caught al-Unaybi.Meanwhile, sectarian tension continued to run high a day after a suicide car bomber attacked Iranian pilgrims near a Shiite shrine in the holy city of Kufa, killing 12 people.Yesterday, bombs and mortar fire struck four Sunni mosques in and around Baghdad as well as a Shiite mosque in northern Iraq, killing 17 people and injuring more than 50.

U.S., Iraqi Forces Make Town Oasis Of Security In A Desert Of Violence

While much of the area around the town of Taji, Iraq, is racked with sectarian violence and insurgent attacks on U.S. troops, Tarmiyah is one of the successes.
Soldiers used to call the main road in Tarmiyah “the racetrack.” When patrols came through the Sunni town, north of Baghdad, they gunned their engines and drove as fast as possible, hoping not to be hit by a shower of rocket-propelled grenades.
Tarmiyah was controlled by insurgents who roamed the streets with AK-47s. There were 20 policemen in a town of 45,000 residents.
“Every other night the police station would get shot up, and the (Iraqi police) would huddle up and just hope not to die,” said Army Col. Jim Pasquarette, the brigade commander for the 4th Infantry Division in the area.
In March, the U.S. Army held a recruiting drive for the police force. Fifty-seven men promised they would join. When the day came to ride to the police recruiting center in Baghdad, not a single man showed.
Then, in a three-day span, five Iraqi soldiers were killed in the town.
Pasquarette decided he had had enough. On March 25, hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers rode into Tarmiyah, backed by tanks and attack helicopters. Instead of the fight that Pasquarette was expecting, the day was relatively quiet.
U.S. soldiers walked through the marketplace and handed out leaflets explaining that they were going to spend $7million on construction projects, including a major water pipeline and a health clinic.
They also blocked the city off completely with a perimeter of triple-stacked bales of concertina wire and told residents that instead of leaving in a week or two – as is often the case after major U.S. operations in small, troubled Sunni towns – the soldiers would be living at a schoolhouse in the middle of town. They said insurgents wouldn't be coming back next week to punish townspeople who cooperated with the Americans.
U.S. officers also promised that Iraqi troops soon would be the ones manning the checkpoints.
Within a week, some 2,000 Iraqis signed up to join the police.
Today, joint U.S.-Iraqi patrols walk through the marketplace without watching their backs. Attacks in the town have dropped to almost nothing, and attacks in the wide swath of land surrounding it have gone down by at least 10percent, military officials said.
How long that will last no one knows.
“It's been a great success, but it's just one 'sig-act' away from failure,” said Pasquarette, using military-speak for significant enemy action. “There's no