Gimlets Work to Flush Terror Out of Sadr City

Days after intense fighting and the call to peace from Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr March 30, Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers patrol the outskirts of Baghdad's Sadr City, ensuring the safety of the city's residents.

The poorest of Bagdad's districts, Sadr City has historically been a safe haven for terrorists and the backdrop of many conflicts for coalition forces since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

A company and a platoon of Soldiers from the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, attached to 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, MND-B are tired, dirty, and work 24 hours a day with only cat naps to sustain them, but they relentlessly take to the filth-ridden streets in their mission to drive terrorists out of the area.

What began as a 96-hour tasking on March 26, turned into an open-ended mission and for now, the Gimlets' focus is to support the Iraqi Security Forces and rid the area of terrorists.

Capt. Scott Bailey, a company commander, said the mission in support of combat operations was a success.

"We had some significant contact when we first arrived," he said, "but we planned good company attacks and now it is pretty quiet here."

Bailey attributes the quiet to a show of force from the Gimlets and other coalition forces and said he is confident that the Gimlets have helped the residents of Sadr City.

Soldiers like Staff Sgt. James Dean, a platoon sergeant, are not so sure.

"We definitely helped stop the shooting, but only time will tell if we help the people improve their future," he said.

When fighting broke out in Sadr City, the Iraqi Army checkpoints were targeted by the terrorists. They were consistently mortared and the Iraqi soldiers eventually left the checkpoint.

To help restore their confidence, the Gimlets provided a constant presence and supplies, such as water, to the Iraqi soldiers.

"It is important that we help them get on their feet," Bailey said. "We need to support them and put them out front, so the Iraqi people can gain confidence in their army."

Bailey said he doesn't know when his Soldiers will leave Joint Security Station Ur and head back to their area of operations, but added his Soldiers are working hard to accomplish the mission around Sadr City.

Bush's Legacy to Be Shaped by Iraq War

If he has doubts, he does not voice them. If he has regrets about his decision, he does not show them. More than five years into an Iraq war that has been longer, bloodier and costlier than the country expected, President Bush never wavers: The battle is just, the victory assured.

Along the way, he has locked in another certitude. The pre-emptive war in Iraq will define how he is remembered.

"Let history be the judge," Bush responds as legacy questions creep into his final months in office.

But the American people tend to live in the moment and evaluate their leaders in real time. Their disapproval is clear.

The majority of people think the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Bush's public approval, at 90 percent after the Sept. 11 attacks and 71 percent at the onset of the war in 2003, has fallen steadily through his second term. His approval now hovers in the dismal range of 30 percent, in no small part due to the war.

Bush says an accurate analysis of his legacy, and the war's role in it, is impossible now. He suggests it might take decades.

"There's no such thing as an accurate history of an administration until time has lapsed — unless you're doing little-bitty things," he says. And there's nothing small, the president says, about liberating people from tyranny or trying to create a democracy in a place where terrorists still roam.

Meantime, as another round of testimony on Capitol Hill consumes Washington's attention, the war goes on.

On Thursday, in comments to the nation, Bush is expected to embrace his top Iraq commander's recommendation for a suspension of U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq. The White House is not confirming that message, but Bush has been telegraphing it through his own speeches for weeks.

Bush's unequivocal war language has not precluded him from adjusting tactics, or even admitting missteps. When violence in Iraq overwhelmed the country in 2006, he called the situation unacceptable and ordered in 30,000 more troops. "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me," he said.

Critics say the toll of those mistakes is wrenching — more than 4,000 American lives lost, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, a damaged international reputation — and no end in sight. The rationale for the war itself shifted over time. The war has so dominated Bush's time in office that the entire foreign policy debate has been reduced to Iraq, said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., one of his party's top strategists.

"There's China to debate. There's the overall Middle East. There's the relationship in Europe as it relates to Russia," he said. "Every major issue as it relates to foreign policy has been pushed aside or not even discussed. There are so many financial, human and reputational costs that this has drained from America."

The political debate has not seemed to alter Bush's views a bit. The early talk of working with a Democratic Congress remained just that, as both sides engaged in challenge and confrontation. Democrats never were able to outflank Bush's veto on the direction of the war.

What Bush does take personally is the individual toll of the war. On Tuesday, at the White House, he had tears streaming down his face during a military tribute to a Navy SEAL who was killed when he threw himself on a grenade in Iraq to save his comrades.

Bush says he is driven to make sure that such lives were not lost in vain, that America will end up being safer, that the "outcome that will merit the sacrifice."

This is what presidents do — speak with certainty once they've made up their mind. If they second-guess themselves in public, the country follows.

The trouble with Bush's approach is not that he sticks to what he believes, said political science professor Cal Jillson. It's the results.

"If they're good, then consistency is a sign of being resolute," said Jillson, who teaches at Southern Methodist University, the home of Bush's planned presidential library. "If the results are bad, then it's pigheadedness. And in general, the results have not been good, so he does not get the benefit of the doubt."

Presidencies are enormously diverse and complex, so the idea that Bush's legacy would be reduced to war is not one the White House supports.

There are other hallmarks of Bush's time, from a landmark education law to tax cuts to a widely hailed disease-prevention program in Africa. Of course, there are also the slumping economy, the failed federal response to Hurricane Katrina and the unsuccessful attempts to overhaul immigration and Social Security.

White House aides decline to engage in talk about Bush's legacy, just as their boss does. The president is still plenty busy running the country, they say.

The White House, however, does fight against the perception that Bush only hears what he wants — and that he dismisses Congress' views on the war. Leading House and Senate lawmakers of both parties were invited to the White House on Wednesday to talk to Bush about the war.

"The president listens to their input," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. "We'll see what they have to say."

It won't be a surprise. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that the "Iraqi government is not worthy of the sacrifice of our troops." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said: "It is time for the president to be honest with the American people: What does victory look like to him? How does all this end?"

For nine more months, at least, it appears it will end — or not — as Bush sees fit. After that, history will judge.

As Bush himself put it earlier this year: "Iraq is important for our security. I will be making decisions based upon success in Iraq. The temptation, of course, is for people to say, `Well, make sure you do the politically right thing.' That's not my nature."

Gen. Petraeus insists U.S. needs to stay in Iraq indefinitely

Gen. David Petraeus said Tuesday that at least 140,000 U.S. troops should remain indefinitely in Iraq - and also appeared to move the goalposts for defining the success of their mission.

Despite genuine gains, "We haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible," he cautioned the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The U.S. troop surge "significantly reduced" what had been the main threat from Al Qaeda in Iraq, Petraeus said. But the effort to stabilize the country was in peril from so-called "Special Groups" of terrorists trained and funded by Iran who were behind the recent violence in Basra and Baghdad, he added. "Unchecked, the Special Groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq," Petraeus said in marathon testimony before two Senate committees.

He said the new main threat from Iran influenced him in deciding to stop troop withdrawals at the end of July when the remaining surge troops come home to leave U.S. force levels at about 140,000.

Additional withdrawals would stop completely for at least 45 days, Petraeus said, and would be followed by a "process of assessment" to determine when pullouts could be renewed.

Despite repeated attempts by senators of both parties to gauge how long his assessment might last, Petraeus refused to be pinned down.

"Could that be a month, could that be two months, could that be four months?" asked Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

It could be less, but, "It could be more than that," Petraeus said. "Again, it's when the conditions are met that we can make a recommendation for further reductions."

Petraeus later said withdrawals would be "conditions-based" and "it is just flat not responsible to try to put down a stake in the ground and say this is when it would be or that is when it would be."

Petraeus' statements virtually guaranteed that the next President will inherit a significant U.S. troop presence in Iraq and also ensured the war will remain a major issue in the November election.

President Bush will back up Petraeus in meetings today with congressional leaders, who have acknowledged they lack the votes to change his policy.

Bush also was to make a daytime Iraq address tomorrow, announcing that U.S. troop tours in Iraq and Afghanistan will be reduced from 15 to 12 months.

Democrats on the committees generally pressed Petraeus without success for a withdrawal timetable, while Republicans deferred to the four-star officer.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was an exception. In tones of resignation, Collins said that "success always seems to be around the corner" in Iraq.

Deadly fighting in Baghdad as Iraq marks Saddam's fall

Iraq on Wednesday marked the fifth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted regime with the nation still in turmoil, the capital under curfew and a surge of deadly violence in the Shiite bastion of Sadr City.

Iraqi officials said three mortar rounds slammed into Sadr City, the eastern Baghdad stronghold of anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, killing at least seven people and wounding 24 others.

One mortar round struck the rooftop of a house where a family was having breakfast, killing three members of a family, including two children.

Another mortar struck a nearby tent set up for a condolence service for a person killed earlier in the week, while a third fell on an empty plot.

Clashes in the sprawling Shiite district in the early hours killed another six people and wounded at least 15, a medical official said.

Sadr City has been wracked by fighting since Sunday between Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and US and Iraqi forces in which at least 55 people have died and scores have been wounded.

The US military says it is chasing "criminals" firing rockets into Baghdad and the heavily fortified Green Zone where the Iraqi government and US embassy are sited.

Sadr had last week called for a million-strong anti-American demonstration in Baghdad to mark the anniversary of Saddam's ouster by US invading forces but cancelled it on Tuesday "to save Iraqi blood."

Baghdad's streets were empty of cars and trucks after the authorities declared a 5:00 am to midnight (0200 GMT to 2100 GMT) vehicle curfew to prevent car bomb attacks by Sunni insurgents.

Saddam's hometown of Tikrit was also under a day-long curfew, an AFP correspondent said.

It took US invading forces just three weeks to defeat Saddam's forces and topple his regime on April 9, 2003.

On that day, US Marines put a rope around the neck of a giant statue of Saddam in Baghdad's Firdoos Square, pulling it down in an act that symbolised the fall of the dictator's brutal regime.

A jubilant Iraqi crowd "insulted" the fallen statue by smacking its face with their shoes.

But five years later the American military and Baghdad's new Shiite-led regime are still battling to curb the bloodshed that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than four million.

Fears of an uptick in the violence are running deep after hardline Sadr, angered by attacks on his militiamen, threatened on Tuesday to end the truce his feared Mahdi Army militia has been observing since August.

US commanders acknowledge that the ceasefire was one of the factors behind a sharp drop in violence across Iraq in the second half of last year.

Although US President George W. Bush insisted in March that toppling Saddam was the "right decision", his commanders are finding it difficult to bring stability to Iraq despite last year's "surge" strategy of deploying an extra 30,000 troops.

The top US general in Iraq, David Petraeus, urged in testimony to the US Congress on Tuesday that further troop withdrawals should be held off for at least 45 days after completing the pullout of the "surge" forces by July.

Petraeus said the surge had helped make "significant but uneven" progress in Iraq, while Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker warned that those achievements were "reversible."

For Iraqis, the five years since the ouster of Saddam has been a period of turmoil and bloodletting.

"When I saw the American tanks roll into Baghdad, I was happy and full of dreams... dreams of a prosperous Iraq, a developed Iraq. But since then it has become a nightmare of suffering and destruction," said Sarah Yussef, 25.

The war has killed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians since the US-led invasion. Between 104,000 and 223,000 people died from March 2003 to June 2006 alone, according to the World Health Organisation.

The songs of joy that greeted the American tanks when they reached Baghdad have long since become cries of hatred.

Majeed Hameed, a gift shop owner in Baghdad's northern Antar Square, said the American tanks rolling on the streets of Baghdad are now seen as "enemy" forces.

"We can't describe how savage these barbarians are whose promises were false and full of lies. They came to occupy and cause destruction. We got nothing but disaster," said Hameed.

Basim Atia, an unemployed man living in Karrada district of central Baghdad, described the toppling of Saddam as a "black day" in the history of Iraq.

"On that day, all our values were turned upside down. Today we see only killing and sectarianism, and scientists and doctors are fleeing the country."