lily
02-26-2007, 09:35 PM
Don't see much standing up. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/25/AR2007022501412.html?referrer=email)
Baghdad Plan Has Elusive Targets
U.S. Patrols Still Unable to Tell Friend From Foe
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 26, 2007; Page A01
BAGHDAD -- The engineer stood aside as Iraqi and American soldiers rifled
through his daughter's wardrobe and peered under her bed. He did not mind
when they confiscated the second clip for his AK-47, because he knew it
could be easily replaced. He demurred when asked about insurgent activity in
the neighborhood, afraid to be stamped an informant and driven from his home
of 14 years. Face to face with the Baghdad security plan, it seemed to him a
bit absurd.
"Obviously, the soldiers lack the necessary information about where to look
and who to look for," said the government engineer, who declined to give his
name in an interview during a sweep through his western Baghdad neighborhood
last Monday. "There are too many houses and too many hide-outs."
American military commanders in Iraq describe the security plan they began
implementing in mid-February as a rising tide: a gradual influx of thousands
of U.S. and Iraqi troops whose extended presence in the city's violent
neighborhoods will drown the militants' ability to stage bombings and
sectarian killings.
But U.S. troops, Iraqi soldiers and officials, and Baghdad residents say the
plan is hampered because security forces cannot identify, let alone
apprehend, the elusive perpetrators of the violence. Shiite militiamen in
the capital say they are keeping a low profile to wait out the security
plan. U.S. commanders have noted increased insurgent violence in the
Sunni-dominated belt around Baghdad and are concerned that fighters are
shifting their focus outside the city.
The first brigade of 2,700 American reinforcements is patrolling the
capital, bringing the total U.S. troop presence in Baghdad to 40,000, and
members of three additional Iraqi military brigades have entered the city,
though not at full strength. Soldiers have opened 14 of the estimated 30
joint policing stations they will operate in the capital.
Military patrols frequently push into neighborhoods where they have been
shot at or struck with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, only to find
no one to arrest.
"I don't know who I'm fighting most of the time," said Staff Sgt. Joseph
Lopez, 39, a soldier based in the northern outskirts of the capital. "I
don't know who is setting what IED."
Many people in Baghdad express deep reservations about the Iraqi security
forces' ability and desire to battle their fellow citizens. U.S. soldiers
say their Iraqi counterparts are swayed more by the anti-American speeches
of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr than by the public appeals of Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki for even-handed enforcement.
On the streets of the capital, it is impossible to miss the increased
military presence. Iraqi police pickups speed down the avenues, sirens
wailing, as masked officers fire machine guns to clear their path. Iraqi
army soldiers and policemen stand sentry at checkpoint after checkpoint, but
more often than not allow cars to pass through without inspection.
"They're just standing and waving at the cars," said Sgt. Haider Hasim, 20,
a member of the Iraqi National Guard's 1st Brigade, 2nd Regiment of the 6th
Division, who patrols the western Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriyah. "They
won't take weapons from their friends."
Commandos and policemen from the predominantly Shiite Interior Ministry have
little desire to raid or arrest members of their own sect or residents from
their home neighborhoods, said Hasim, whose father is Sunni and mother is
Shiite. From what he has seen, the Iraqi soldiers brought in for the
security plan are accomplishing little.
"They're doing nothing, they're just sleeping at the camps," he said. "We do
not go out if the Americans are not with us."
Baghdad Plan Has Elusive Targets
U.S. Patrols Still Unable to Tell Friend From Foe
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 26, 2007; Page A01
BAGHDAD -- The engineer stood aside as Iraqi and American soldiers rifled
through his daughter's wardrobe and peered under her bed. He did not mind
when they confiscated the second clip for his AK-47, because he knew it
could be easily replaced. He demurred when asked about insurgent activity in
the neighborhood, afraid to be stamped an informant and driven from his home
of 14 years. Face to face with the Baghdad security plan, it seemed to him a
bit absurd.
"Obviously, the soldiers lack the necessary information about where to look
and who to look for," said the government engineer, who declined to give his
name in an interview during a sweep through his western Baghdad neighborhood
last Monday. "There are too many houses and too many hide-outs."
American military commanders in Iraq describe the security plan they began
implementing in mid-February as a rising tide: a gradual influx of thousands
of U.S. and Iraqi troops whose extended presence in the city's violent
neighborhoods will drown the militants' ability to stage bombings and
sectarian killings.
But U.S. troops, Iraqi soldiers and officials, and Baghdad residents say the
plan is hampered because security forces cannot identify, let alone
apprehend, the elusive perpetrators of the violence. Shiite militiamen in
the capital say they are keeping a low profile to wait out the security
plan. U.S. commanders have noted increased insurgent violence in the
Sunni-dominated belt around Baghdad and are concerned that fighters are
shifting their focus outside the city.
The first brigade of 2,700 American reinforcements is patrolling the
capital, bringing the total U.S. troop presence in Baghdad to 40,000, and
members of three additional Iraqi military brigades have entered the city,
though not at full strength. Soldiers have opened 14 of the estimated 30
joint policing stations they will operate in the capital.
Military patrols frequently push into neighborhoods where they have been
shot at or struck with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, only to find
no one to arrest.
"I don't know who I'm fighting most of the time," said Staff Sgt. Joseph
Lopez, 39, a soldier based in the northern outskirts of the capital. "I
don't know who is setting what IED."
Many people in Baghdad express deep reservations about the Iraqi security
forces' ability and desire to battle their fellow citizens. U.S. soldiers
say their Iraqi counterparts are swayed more by the anti-American speeches
of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr than by the public appeals of Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki for even-handed enforcement.
On the streets of the capital, it is impossible to miss the increased
military presence. Iraqi police pickups speed down the avenues, sirens
wailing, as masked officers fire machine guns to clear their path. Iraqi
army soldiers and policemen stand sentry at checkpoint after checkpoint, but
more often than not allow cars to pass through without inspection.
"They're just standing and waving at the cars," said Sgt. Haider Hasim, 20,
a member of the Iraqi National Guard's 1st Brigade, 2nd Regiment of the 6th
Division, who patrols the western Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriyah. "They
won't take weapons from their friends."
Commandos and policemen from the predominantly Shiite Interior Ministry have
little desire to raid or arrest members of their own sect or residents from
their home neighborhoods, said Hasim, whose father is Sunni and mother is
Shiite. From what he has seen, the Iraqi soldiers brought in for the
security plan are accomplishing little.
"They're doing nothing, they're just sleeping at the camps," he said. "We do
not go out if the Americans are not with us."