.Iraqis Fear Return to Violent Days
BAGHDAD (AP) - In just a week, Baghdad has seen a spate of suicide bombings that have killed scores of Iraqis and five U.S. soldiers - among 12 Americans who have fallen in the line of duty during the past three days in Iraq.
Suddenly, the city is feeling the unease of the period before violence eased partly as a result of the U.S. troop buildup, which is now coming to a close.
"Violence has increased dramatically" over the past few days, said Haitham Ismael, a 33-year-old father of three living in western Baghdad.
After five years of war, Iraqis interviewed said they were not necessarily changing their daily routines. But all said the growing bloodshed was present in their minds, clouding what had until recently been a more hopeful time.
Some fear that the rampant violence of one year ago may be coming back, especially as the 30,000 soldiers sent to Baghdad last summer to help end a sectarian war begin returning home.
The key goal of the U.S. "surge" was to secure the capital, giving Iraq's politicians breathing room to cut deals that would bring minority Sunni Arabs into the government and thereby weaken or end the insurgency.
Violence in the capital has indeed diminished, thanks also to a maze of walls and barriers that divide Shiite from Sunni neighborhoods, a key Shiite militia's cease-fire and the decision by many Sunnis to turn against al-Qaida in Iraq. As a result, street life and even nightlife have returned to many districts, particularly Shiite.
But Iraqi politicians are still gridlocked over sharing power, and citizens appear to have little hope that Iraqi forces could control al-Qaida in Iraq and renegade Shiite militias on their own.
"I'm 100 percent certain that if the U.S. forces leave now, the situation will become very explosive," said Naji Hassan Yassin, a 55-year-old math teacher and father of three from the capital's Amariyah neighborhood, once controlled by al-Qaida in Iraq.
"I think militant groups, whether Shiite or Sunni, will not disappear," said Yassin, a Sunni. "They do this (disappear) only when there are troops on the street. But they will return when they leave. How long can we keep all these American troops on the ground?"
It is a question that reverberates from Baghdad to Capitol Hill.
Despite recent attacks in Baghdad, American commanders have sought to reassure a nervous public, though by no means with rosy forecasts.
"Al-Qaida, we have continued to assess, is the one (group) that has the greatest threat to security and stability in the near term and the one we are focused a great deal on," U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner told reporters Wednesday.
While Bergner was quick to note that violence has decreased nationwide in the last nine months - the military says all attacks have fallen by 60 percent - he also expressed a standard military caveat.
"We've said all along that there will be tough days ahead and periods where we see al-Qaida seek to adapt new tactics and new approaches," Bergner said.
The tempo of violence has picked up recently:
_Twelve U.S. soldiers have now been killed since Monday, five of them in a suicide attack in central Baghdad.
_Last Thursday, two massive bombs hit Baghdad's Karradah neighborhood, killing 68 people.
_Twin car bombings on March 1 killed 24 people.
_On Feb. 1, at least 100 people died when two female suicide bombers struck two pet markets in Baghdad.
According to an Associated Press count, at the height of unrest from November 2006 to August 2007, on average approximately 65 Iraqis died each day as a result of violence. As conditions improved, the daily death toll steadily declined. It reached its lowest point in more than two years on January 2008, when on average 20 Iraqis died each day.
Those numbers have since jumped. In February, approximately 26 Iraqis died each day as a result of violence, and so far in March, that number is up to 39 daily. These figures reflect the months in which people were found, and not necessarily - in the case of mass graves - the months in which they were killed.
Despite the recent attacks blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq, Michael O'Hanlon, of the Brookings think tank, said it does not necessarily signal renewed strength.
"I believe they attack when they can, roughly as much as they can, without worrying too much about timing," he said. "I don't think they have elaborate strategies. They tend to maximize their violence at most times, given their capacities."
That said, the drawdown of U.S. forces that has already begun "means we have to limit our involvement in some ... places, and, yes, that may increase the challenge of rooting out extremists nationwide," O'Hanlon said.
Top military commanders in Iraq and officials in Washington have in the past month said that slowing the withdrawal of U.S. troops might be necessary, given concerns about security in Iraq. Earlier, there were hopes the 30,000 extra troops sent last summer would be home by July.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsed the idea of pausing the drawdown. Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, indicated that he wants a "period of evaluation" this summer to assess the impact on security of reducing the U.S. military presence from 20 brigades to 15 brigades.
Of that five-brigade reduction, only one has departed so far, reducing the number of troops by 5,000 and dropping the overall U.S. troop level in Iraq to 158,000. As the plan now stands, the last of the five brigades is to be gone by the end of July, leaving about 140,000 troops in Iraq. That would still mean 8,000 more troops than when the buildup began.
The presence of U.S. troops elicits complex emotions among Iraqis, who have repeatedly seen foreign invaders on their lands throughout their history.
"It is bitter to have to say that we want the foreign forces to stay because we fear and don't trust each other," Yassin said.
But a 24-year-old construction worker in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone said that without a strong U.S. presence, more than Iraqi pride would be wounded.
"If the Americans leave there will be big problems," said the man, who gave his name only as Omar. "The situation would return to the same as it was before - al-Qaida would be killing everyone."
Hassan al-Saedi, a 39-year-old Shiite living in Karradah with his wife and two children, said he had mixed feelings about the presence of American troops but that ultimately security trumps pride.
"The presence of American forces is necessary to stabilize the country. If they withdraw, sectarian violence would definitely increase," he said. "Al-Qaida would be an unstoppable force in Iraq because Iraqi forces don't have the abilities to fight them."
On Wednesday, a group of Iraqi tribal leaders, former politicians and intellectuals appealed to the United Nations to take control of Iraq, a move they say would help U.S. troops leave the country while maintaining calm.
In the letter, delivered to the U.N. office in Cairo, the group wrote that "the only opportunity left for Iraq to be saved from a dark, but not inevitable future, is to engage the international community. ... Such a step will allow the American troops to leave and the occupation to be brought to its end."
Regardless of how many American troops remain in Iraq or if a broader international coalition takes responsibility, Yassin said until the root of the nation's woes are addressed, blood will continue to flow.
"The Americans and the Iraqi government must get to the bottom of the problem and determine the reasons behind all this violence," he said. "There is unemployment among young people, there is revenge by those who lost their loved ones ... There is organized crime and a lot of other reasons.
"So the presence of the Americans or the Iraqi tanks and soldiers in the street is not enough to decrease the violence and get the country and its people back to the better days of the past."
MyWay
Suddenly, the city is feeling the unease of the period before violence eased partly as a result of the U.S. troop buildup, which is now coming to a close.
"Violence has increased dramatically" over the past few days, said Haitham Ismael, a 33-year-old father of three living in western Baghdad.
After five years of war, Iraqis interviewed said they were not necessarily changing their daily routines. But all said the growing bloodshed was present in their minds, clouding what had until recently been a more hopeful time.
Some fear that the rampant violence of one year ago may be coming back, especially as the 30,000 soldiers sent to Baghdad last summer to help end a sectarian war begin returning home.
The key goal of the U.S. "surge" was to secure the capital, giving Iraq's politicians breathing room to cut deals that would bring minority Sunni Arabs into the government and thereby weaken or end the insurgency.
Violence in the capital has indeed diminished, thanks also to a maze of walls and barriers that divide Shiite from Sunni neighborhoods, a key Shiite militia's cease-fire and the decision by many Sunnis to turn against al-Qaida in Iraq. As a result, street life and even nightlife have returned to many districts, particularly Shiite.
But Iraqi politicians are still gridlocked over sharing power, and citizens appear to have little hope that Iraqi forces could control al-Qaida in Iraq and renegade Shiite militias on their own.
"I'm 100 percent certain that if the U.S. forces leave now, the situation will become very explosive," said Naji Hassan Yassin, a 55-year-old math teacher and father of three from the capital's Amariyah neighborhood, once controlled by al-Qaida in Iraq.
"I think militant groups, whether Shiite or Sunni, will not disappear," said Yassin, a Sunni. "They do this (disappear) only when there are troops on the street. But they will return when they leave. How long can we keep all these American troops on the ground?"
It is a question that reverberates from Baghdad to Capitol Hill.
Despite recent attacks in Baghdad, American commanders have sought to reassure a nervous public, though by no means with rosy forecasts.
"Al-Qaida, we have continued to assess, is the one (group) that has the greatest threat to security and stability in the near term and the one we are focused a great deal on," U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner told reporters Wednesday.
While Bergner was quick to note that violence has decreased nationwide in the last nine months - the military says all attacks have fallen by 60 percent - he also expressed a standard military caveat.
"We've said all along that there will be tough days ahead and periods where we see al-Qaida seek to adapt new tactics and new approaches," Bergner said.
The tempo of violence has picked up recently:
_Twelve U.S. soldiers have now been killed since Monday, five of them in a suicide attack in central Baghdad.
_Last Thursday, two massive bombs hit Baghdad's Karradah neighborhood, killing 68 people.
_Twin car bombings on March 1 killed 24 people.
_On Feb. 1, at least 100 people died when two female suicide bombers struck two pet markets in Baghdad.
According to an Associated Press count, at the height of unrest from November 2006 to August 2007, on average approximately 65 Iraqis died each day as a result of violence. As conditions improved, the daily death toll steadily declined. It reached its lowest point in more than two years on January 2008, when on average 20 Iraqis died each day.
Those numbers have since jumped. In February, approximately 26 Iraqis died each day as a result of violence, and so far in March, that number is up to 39 daily. These figures reflect the months in which people were found, and not necessarily - in the case of mass graves - the months in which they were killed.
Despite the recent attacks blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq, Michael O'Hanlon, of the Brookings think tank, said it does not necessarily signal renewed strength.
"I believe they attack when they can, roughly as much as they can, without worrying too much about timing," he said. "I don't think they have elaborate strategies. They tend to maximize their violence at most times, given their capacities."
That said, the drawdown of U.S. forces that has already begun "means we have to limit our involvement in some ... places, and, yes, that may increase the challenge of rooting out extremists nationwide," O'Hanlon said.
Top military commanders in Iraq and officials in Washington have in the past month said that slowing the withdrawal of U.S. troops might be necessary, given concerns about security in Iraq. Earlier, there were hopes the 30,000 extra troops sent last summer would be home by July.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsed the idea of pausing the drawdown. Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, indicated that he wants a "period of evaluation" this summer to assess the impact on security of reducing the U.S. military presence from 20 brigades to 15 brigades.
Of that five-brigade reduction, only one has departed so far, reducing the number of troops by 5,000 and dropping the overall U.S. troop level in Iraq to 158,000. As the plan now stands, the last of the five brigades is to be gone by the end of July, leaving about 140,000 troops in Iraq. That would still mean 8,000 more troops than when the buildup began.
The presence of U.S. troops elicits complex emotions among Iraqis, who have repeatedly seen foreign invaders on their lands throughout their history.
"It is bitter to have to say that we want the foreign forces to stay because we fear and don't trust each other," Yassin said.
But a 24-year-old construction worker in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone said that without a strong U.S. presence, more than Iraqi pride would be wounded.
"If the Americans leave there will be big problems," said the man, who gave his name only as Omar. "The situation would return to the same as it was before - al-Qaida would be killing everyone."
Hassan al-Saedi, a 39-year-old Shiite living in Karradah with his wife and two children, said he had mixed feelings about the presence of American troops but that ultimately security trumps pride.
"The presence of American forces is necessary to stabilize the country. If they withdraw, sectarian violence would definitely increase," he said. "Al-Qaida would be an unstoppable force in Iraq because Iraqi forces don't have the abilities to fight them."
On Wednesday, a group of Iraqi tribal leaders, former politicians and intellectuals appealed to the United Nations to take control of Iraq, a move they say would help U.S. troops leave the country while maintaining calm.
In the letter, delivered to the U.N. office in Cairo, the group wrote that "the only opportunity left for Iraq to be saved from a dark, but not inevitable future, is to engage the international community. ... Such a step will allow the American troops to leave and the occupation to be brought to its end."
Regardless of how many American troops remain in Iraq or if a broader international coalition takes responsibility, Yassin said until the root of the nation's woes are addressed, blood will continue to flow.
"The Americans and the Iraqi government must get to the bottom of the problem and determine the reasons behind all this violence," he said. "There is unemployment among young people, there is revenge by those who lost their loved ones ... There is organized crime and a lot of other reasons.
"So the presence of the Americans or the Iraqi tanks and soldiers in the street is not enough to decrease the violence and get the country and its people back to the better days of the past."
MyWay
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