1960 word count
Although the tone of this NYT's story is the inevitable question of the wisdom of this new strategy, it shows the daily heroism of the US military with saving a young Iraqi girls life.
January 23, 2007
In the Vortex of Baghdad, Staying Put This Time
By MARC SANTORA
BAGHDAD, Jan. 22 — Two blocks from the new American outpost in Ghazaliya, one of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhoods, a fight was raging. Shiites were battling Sunnis, the latest skirmish in a sectarian war that has left this area a wasteland.
On Friday morning, it became an American fight, too, after a few rounds whizzed by Sgt. Sergej Michaud’s head, and he and three other soldiers returned fire.
The battle would rage for nearly an hour, with mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades exploding near the soldiers, who in turn laid down heavy fire, eventually driving the attackers away.
Previously, that would have been the end of it, with the soldiers moving on to their next patrol area and eventually returning to their base. But this time, the Americans were staying, defending their new home in a neighborhood where the rule of law had been driven out by the reign of the gun.
Their outpost here, a cluster of fortified houses officially designated a joint security station and unofficially called the Alamo by some of the soldiers, is a test case for President Bush’s new Baghdad security plan. The strategy envisions at least 20 more facilities like it in other troubled neighborhoods, all jointly staffed by Iraqi and American forces.
Even after the stations are set up, American commanders say, it will be many months, at best, before they can even hope to prevent bombings like the one that killed at least 88 people in a central Baghdad market area on Monday.
In the week since the Americans arrived, however, the troops have seen the truth of what their commanders warned in announcing the plan: it leaves Americans more exposed than ever, stationary targets for warring militias.
The outpost sits on the fault line between Sunni and Shiite enclaves: Ghazaliya to the south, where fighters with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia have moved in among the Sunni population, and Shula to the north, a base for Shiite militias that have been raiding this neighborhood for months.
Over the course of three days spent with the 105 soldiers here — Company C of the Second Battalion, 12th Cavalry — four American vehicles were hit by roadside bombs near the outpost. No soldiers from Company C were wounded, but they know the fighting will intensify.
“I’m a juicy target they are just trying to figure out,” said Capt. Erik Peterson, 29, the commander at the outpost.
During the week, the soldiers also received their first glimpse of the green Iraqi forces who will share the mission and eventually, they hoped, take it over. The soldiers talked about them with a mixture of bemusement, disdain and mistrust.
“You could talk about partnership, but you would be lying,” said one soldier who asked that his name not be used, for fear of punishment by his superiors.
It was also a week to start getting to know the desperate residents of Ghazaliya, where almost every remaining family has lost someone to kidnappings and executions, and where government services have long been cut off.
In their new role, the Americans find themselves acting as jailers and doctors, construction workers and garbage men, guardians and detectives — all in an effort to restore lasting order despite the threats on every side.
Wednesday: First Test
After three days of grueling work on muddy and filthy ground, including installing blast walls around the perimeter, filling 5,000 sandbags and hauling away trash, the soldiers had the beginnings of a functioning base on Wednesday.
That night, they had their first real test. It was nearing midnight, the generator had failed, there was no heat, the radio was malfunctioning — and an Iraqi girl no more than 4 was dying in the bitter cold on an Army cot.
At the same time, a loud firefight erupted outside, apparently an attack on an Iraqi Army checkpoint nearby.
Captain Peterson had brought the sick child to the base because her family was afraid to travel after curfew and no Iraqi government ambulance would dare visit the neighborhood after dark, if at all.
One of the company’s medics, Cpl. Peter Callahan, 23, worked by flashlight, trying to soothe the girl, whose body was rejecting the medication her parents had given her.
“She needs to go to the hospital right now,” he told Captain Peterson. With no time to call in support, Captain Peterson quickly arranged a convoy to the nearest hospital — a risky proposition even in daylight and with more soldiers to provide security.
But the girl’s Sunni family resisted, fearing they would be killed at the hospital, which was in Shula, the Shiite district, if the Americans left them there.
Frustrated, Captain Peterson said over the radio, “I think they are pretty much willing to let this kid die instead of all dying together.”
The Americans decided to head to a safer hospital farther away. But time was running out; the girl’s pulse was dropping fast, dipping below 25.
Corporal Callahan gave her a small shot of atropine, which was all he had, to increase her heart rate. She stabilized, and when he emerged with the girl alive and breathing, he and her parents could barely contain their joy. He had saved her life.
Thursday: The Neighbors
After fortifying the outpost, the soldiers of Company C were ready for their first foray into the neighborhood. Most of them were familiar with the area, having conducted patrols here in armored Humvees for months, from a base near Baghdad’s airport.
The platoon leader, First Lt. Samuel Cartee, 25, reminded his men that this would be different. “They know where we are coming from,” he said.
It would be a short trip on foot, just two blocks north, circling back and checking out a local market area. The biggest threat was snipers.
“If we get shot at, and we know what house it is coming from, we are authorized to raid that house,” he said.
A few minutes after setting out, the soldiers passed a school that, like the other two in the area, was closed. Two months ago, American officers say, a teacher was raped, mutilated and strung up by her feet outside the building, left to hang for days.
It was unclear whether the killing was conducted by Shiites or Sunnis. But American officers said women were increasingly being attacked, especially by elements of Al Qaeda in the southern part of the neighborhood.
The soldiers soon came to an open area, and a shot rang out. A sniper.
They ran across the trash-strewn lot and took up battle positions, backs against a concrete wall, sun in their eyes. The shot came from about two blocks away — too far to pursue the shooter, who would be gone by the time they got there.
Later, two more snipers took shots, both far off the mark.
The Americans continued on, trudging through streets where rainwater had collected in pools and mixed with the open sewers.
Lieutenant Cartee passed out a flier announcing the presence of the station and inviting residents to call with information or problems. In this Sunni part of town, all the tips would point north, toward Shiite Shula. That fact was clearly painted in English on one wall the soldiers passed.
“Hey Americans, we want you to destroy the J.A.M.” It was a reference to the largest Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army. In smaller letters, someone had written an equally clear message: “Bush is appalling and dreadful.”
The soldiers made it to the market, and a crowd formed around them. But the soldiers were mostly unable to talk: interpreters are favored targets of snipers, so theirs had to stay in the armored Humvee that trailed behind.
The entire patrol lasted less than an hour. They had been shot at three times, handed out their new phone number to a few dozen people, seen several newly opened stores and made it back alive.
“Nice neighborhood,” Lieutenant Cartee said, deadpan.
That evening, a firefight began outside, close enough that tracer fire whizzed over the station. But the Americans did not seem to be the target, this night at least.
Friday: Troubling Thoughts
The first big fight for the Americans came the next morning — the battle that found Sergeant Michaud. When it was over, the Americans had killed two suspected militia members and taken two prisoner.
The suspects were young men, wearing black — the uniform of the Mahdi militia. The Americans blindfolded them and put them in separate rooms, where they were tested for residue from explosives and held for questioning.
As residents began arriving to offer information, a man who lived next to the new station, a Sunni and former police commander, loaded his family’s possessions into a pickup truck.
He was happy that the Americans were there, he said, but he was afraid that they would attract constant attacks, so he was moving to a different part of the neighborhood. As he packed up his family, he noticed a young boy loitering. The man became enraged, pointing two fingers at his eyes, then pointing at the boy, yelling, “Mahdi! Mahdi!”
The man explained that both the Mahdi Army and Al Qaeda were sending spies to see who was feeding the Americans information. The boy slipped away.
At the same time, Iraqi Army soldiers were starting to move into the outpost. They arrived in the late afternoon, one truck with a flat tire towing another truck that was not working.
Maj. Chasib Kattab, a boisterous Shiite who commands the Iraqi unit of two companies, about 200 men, started to provide information. But, in a likely hint of things to come, all his tips involved Sunni fighters. He had nothing to say about the Shiite militias.
He also seemed eager to fight. When he told the Americans about a car that was likely to be used as a bomb, he asked whether American helicopters would be able to destroy it. Told that, at night, they could make out the shape but not the color, Major Chasib seemed to think that was good enough. “They should just shoot it,” he said.
Captain Peterson had to explain that was not how things worked, aware that his partner’s decisions would affect how the Americans would be perceived.
Captain Peterson was under no illusions that establishing security and training the Iraqis to maintain it would be a difficult operation that could take time. He said he was initially skeptical about the plan, thinking the risks might be too great. But looking back over his experiences this fall patrolling the neighborhood, he said he had changed his mind.
One recent event in particular swayed him. When the Americans canceled their usual patrol on Jan. 3, Sunni extremists used the opportunity to bait militiamen by waging war on the small Shiite civilian population in Ghazaliya.
“They just went into the streets and started killing as many people as they could,” he said. Captain Peterson was at the main American base for western Baghdad, three miles away near the airport, and it took him nearly an hour to respond to pleas for help.
“It was such a helpless feeling for me,” he said.
Corporal Callahan, for his part, said that he was not sure he agrees with the war, and that he knew his wife, Stacie, thought it was terrible. But to get through it, he focuses on the people he can help, like the little Iraqi girl he saved.
“As long as I am here, I am going to try and make it worthwhile as far as the kids are concerned,” he said. “The adults, they are going to do what they are going to do.”
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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