Baghdad surge: 'a coalition of one'

Last Modified: 12 Sep 2007
By: Nick Paton Walsh

Newsroom blog: The US soldier took the Uzi, and broke off its barrel with his hand. Quite a feat, perhaps, were the gun not made of plastic, and a toy belonging to a seven year-old boy.

And were that same boy watching.

We're in Jawadeen, a Shia district of Baghdad, and Alpha company are performing house to house inspections.

It's part of the surge strategy - go into houses in each neighbourhood, and take pictures, fingerprints, retinal scans and basic information from all the fighting age men living there, under the guise of performing a 'census'.

Then insist that you're not searching the house, but just want to have a look around.

The mission became a clear example of the bizarre legal limits to American capabilities that now exist in Iraq.

It's a softer approach, and a bid to build up contacts with locals to gain intelligence, and, given the past alternatives I've seen, you can hardly disdain it. Unless of course you live there, in which case you find that quite easy.

In the house that I and cameraman Matt Jasper were in, the Americans talked about how the Coalition wanted them to do something or other, before the young woman who lived there piped up in perfect English: "Coalition of one".

The mission became a clear example of the bizarre legal limits to American capabilities that now exist in Iraq.

In this house, they were not allowed to confiscate the AK-47 that the family owned (that's allowed under Iraqi law), but were permitted to take away the child's toy guns (they rightfully worry the children will be shot if they play with them at night, for example). The boy looked pretty upset, and I did ask the soldier if he really needed to break it in half in front of him.

"Like I care", he replied. "He knows he's not supposed to have it"

"But he's aged about seven," I countered.

We didn't say much to each other after that.

A few houses down, and the impediments the Americans now face got even clearer.

The house to house 'census', it turns out, was basically a front to build a case against a suspected insurgent.

One of the houses we visit is the home of a major manufacturer of EFPs. These are the relatively sophisticated bombs that can pierce American armour, and have killed many Americans in the past year.

The Pentagon says Iran helps insurgents make them; critics say its technology used decades ago around the world.

The Americans find themselves being a police force in an area that doesn't - for the most part - want them there.

All the same, we are offered a seat in a house, and its numerous brothers enter the room.

Lieutenant Eric Hegdlin - someone I met when I was here six months ago, who now has his own platoon - photographs and fingerprints them one by one. After taking each photo, he shows the brother his picture and laughs, as if to say "watch out, ladies". They smile back.

The effort is admirable, but in this house no-one means what they're saying.

One of the brothers we photograph is a whiz at building EFPs. This American unit have lost two men in the last six months and seen five more severely wounded - some of whom have lost both their legs.

They're pretty sure that one of these brothers built that bomb. So, given that even this war's opponents agree that it's a war, it seems bizarre that they cannot arrest him over their suspicions.

But after four years, this occupation has become murderously complicated.

As Captain Jim Walker - a huge guy with a John Wayne of a voice, who six months ago wasn't a heavy smoker - explains, they can't just go around arresting people based on the information they get.

Walker needs three independent, credible sources telling him someone is definitely doing something wrong, or to catch them doing something immediately incriminating.

In short, the unit we were with have become policemen. They're an occupying power - the only superpower in the world, even - but can't detain a man they are almost certain is behind tens of EFPs.

Were there to be lower standards for them, Walker agrees, the media would be on their back for arresting people without good reason. But these complicated standards betray how confused the American mission has become.

The area we were in is Shia, and not far from Shula, a Shia district that was friendly when we were there six months ago and is now a no-go area. The Mahdi Army - the polite name for Shia militia - have taken control of Shula again.

The Americans find themselves being a police force in an area that doesn't - for the most part - want them there.

A few kilometres south, the Americans have become friendly with Sunnis in southern Ghazaliya who were once at their throats, planting roadside bombs and taking pot shots at them.

But now the locals have banded together to form the Ghazalya Guardians - a US funded neighbourhood watch that helps keep the Shia gunmen at bay in this sectarian war and has made it safe for US troops to be there.

So here's what it's become in the area of Baghdad we visited: the complete reverse of the Sunni insurgency and Shia complicity I saw in March.

The Sunni are losing the civil war against the Shia, so want American help to keep hold of the few districts they still have - hence the Guardians.

The Shia have consolidated their hold of the areas they want, and - in the case of Shula - now want to remind the Americans who's really in charge.

And that answer to that is, really, no-one in particular.