The camouflaged American soldiers, weary from hours of struggling to talk with Iraqis during a patrol in eastern Baghdad, laughed with relief after an Iraqi army major's wife met them at her door. The soldiers had no interpreter. She had a master's degree in English translation.
"Do you want to work for the Americans?" asked U.S. Army Lt. Anthony Slamar, 26. "Do you want a job as a translator?"
The woman stepped back into her darkened doorway.
"With you? No. Not with you. Do I want to die?" she said. "I am afraid of you, I'm sorry."
The American and Iraqi plan to pacify the capital rests on the assumption that U.S. troops can win the trust of a wary population by protecting civilians trapped amid sectarian warfare. Each day, U.S. soldiers go door-to-door in the city, searching bedrooms and bathrooms, cabinets and closets, for unauthorized weapons. The operations also offer a chance to cultivate Iraqis as sources of information about the violence entangling their neighborhoods.
But soldiers in a task force from the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, who have patrolled Baghdad for months, say that trying to gain cooperation from Iraqi civilians is a thankless struggle. They say they feel powerless to prevent the city's slide into wider war and that Iraqis seldom open up to them with detailed intelligence. Since the task force of more than 800 soldiers arrived in August, 15 of them have been killed.
Although their commanders argue otherwise, the extent of the challenge led some soldiers to express doubt in interviews that the additional 17,500 American troops slated for Baghdad can make a lasting difference.
"I don't think the infantry or pretty much anyone in the United States Army are properly trained to deal with the guerrilla tactics these guys use against us," said Spec. Jeffrey Steele, 22. "This is a policing thing, you know. It needs more investigation into how these guys work, where they're located. I don't think we can do any better."
At 7:30 a.m. Thursday, under a drizzling rain, Slamar gathered his unit in a circle in a gravel lot on their base to brief them on the day's mission. He passed around a photograph of a tire filled with explosives, a new type of roadside bomb found in the sector they patrol.
"They are filled with rifle ammunition, nails and pieces of iron to increase the intensity of the explosion and increase its fragmentation effect. Lovely," Slamar said. "Make sure you're . . . scanning, okay? Hey, now's not the . . . time to give up, all right? We've still got a long deployment ahead of us. Keep on going."
The five-Humvee convoy rumbled out of the camp gates and drove south to Qahira, a mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad caught between the Shiite militias in Sadr City to the east and Sunni insurgents in Adhamiyah to the west.
‘No problem’
The first goal was to identify potential rooftop sniper positions for a future operation. The troops, armed with M-4 assault rifles, fanned out and soon found a resident, Ahmed, to lead them into a house they wanted to inspect. When the soldiers entered, past plates of orange peels and half-eaten bread in the kitchen, nervous children came down a marble staircase in their pajamas and stood next to their barefoot mother.
"We're just in the area to secure the area, so we're visiting people," said Capt. Andrew Jasso. "There's been a lot of explosions, like on the road here, the bombs."
"No, no, no, no, okay, okay," Ahmed said, motioning toward neighboring houses. "Friend and friend and friend, okay, no problem."
"So this area is pretty good?" Jasso said, sounding dubious. A single bullet hole was visible in the wall above the stairway.
"No problem," Ahmed said.
The lack of an Arabic interpreter -- a chronic problem, the soldiers say -- made communication more difficult. But even when Americans and Iraqis can understand each other, U.S. soldiers said, many Iraqis do not speak openly because they are afraid of being perceived in their neighborhood as collaborating with the Americans.
The Iraqi army major with the English-speaking wife begged the Americans not to reveal his profession to his neighbors, and said he would be risking his life even going outside with them.
"If the people see me with you, they do this," he said, shooting an imaginary gun with his hands. "Okay? Understand? They come and kill me: 'You work with the U.S.A.' "
The American troops took some care to be polite when entering Iraqi homes. During Thursday's six-hour patrol, they handed out Iraqi newspapers and packets of gum and attracted an eager following of young children. But machine-gun-toting Americans rooting through bedrooms, inspecting weapons and demanding identification cards clearly unsettled some residents.
Inside the Iraqi major's house, Jasso tried to put the major's wife and her relatives at ease by telling stories about his two young children. She interrupted him. "Sorry, I have to ask you. Why didn't you just knock at the door? Why did you just jump in?"
A soldier explained to her that the Americans avoid standing in the street in front of houses because of the threat of snipers.
"Just trying not to give everyone a bad impression of Americans is the hardest thing," said Staff Sgt. Andrew McKay, 27. "Being courteous, being nice to the kids, being nice to the families, but still maintaining your military bearing and doing your job -- it's a fine line to walk."
Deteriorating attitudes
Faced with an often distrustful, frightened populace, members of the task force said they doubted that adding thousands more U.S. troops would change this frustrating dynamic. One soldier, on his second tour in Iraq, said the attitude of the Iraqi civilians toward the Americans continues to deteriorate.
"Whatever new plans they come up with, it won't work out here. It's getting worse and worse," the soldier said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he worried about a reprimand from his superior officers. "I was here last time, in the beginning. Now it's totally changed. They don't even respect us anymore. They spit at us, they throw rocks at us. It wasn't like that before."
Higher-ranking officers with the task force said they see encouraging signs that cooperation with Iraqis will improve as the new security initiative in Baghdad begins.
The unit's acting commander, Maj. Clay Padgett, said the influx of U.S. troops and changes in tactics would generate more intelligence about insurgent and militia activity. He said the troops would move onto smaller bases to increase their presence in violent neighborhoods.
Within the past month, Padgett's task force has set up one office known as a joint security site, or JSS, that brings together representatives from the Iraqi police, army and coalition forces to coordinate information and operations. The new security plan calls for about 35 more such sites spread over Baghdad's nine security districts.
"When you hear the stories about soldiers who say the local Iraqis don't want us to be here, you would be amazed at the amount of tips that have come in just from us establishing inside of the JSS," Padgett said. "And because we're right there" with the Iraqi police, "we're right there inside the community. All of a sudden the community feels as though here's another window of opportunity to come up and talk to coalition forces."
Sgt. 1st Class Luis Enrique Gutierrez Rosales, 38, said most of the Iraqis he has met say they are pleased that the Americans patrol their neighborhoods. "They said they always feel safe when we're around. People stop on the road and say thank you. They say, 'If it wasn't for you, I probably wouldn't be alive,' " he said.
But some of his soldiers saw less reason to be hopeful about either their relations with the Iraqis or the troop increase. After the patrol on Thursday, Sgt. Michael Hiler, 26, stepped down from his Humvee and described the day's effort as "stupid."
‘Good riddance’
"We should have pulled out a long time ago," Hiler said. "It's going to take the hand of God to change anything about what we do here, which is nothing. This country's going to fall apart sooner or later, and at this point I say, 'Good riddance.' "
Sitting on bunks while waiting for an evening patrol, a group of soldiers discussed the enemy and the latest security effort, described by Padgett as "the last best hope for Iraq."
"All these extra troops start coming into Baghdad, you'll start reducing the anti-American violence. That way, it will show quick results for the Bush administration. And that way, 'Hey, we won the war, let's get out of here,' " said Pfc. Daniel Gomez, 21, a medic. But he said of the forces opposing the Americans: "They're like the Viet Cong, they can wait it out. We're not going to be here forever, and they know that. And then we're gone, and it's all theirs."
