Word: baghdad
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...That may make some sense, but it's hard to conceive how things in Baghdad could get much worse. Though U.S. and Iraqi officials in Baghdad and Washington say that quelling sectarian violence is their highest priority, the continued inability of U.S. or Iraqi forces to do anything to curb the power of armed militias has meant the slaughter has grown beyond anyone's control. The July death toll in the capital exceeded 3,400, making it the bloodiest month since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The escalating bloodshed has prompted the U.S. to send 5,500 more soldiers...
...That kind of talk enrages Sunnis who face the brunt of the militias' murderous depredations. Adopting the same simplistic approach as their Shi'ite counterparts, Sunni politicians say Baghdad's security problems would disappear if only the U.S. would mount a major offensive operation in Sadr City. "They know the problem, the know the solution," says Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni. "So why aren't they doing something...
...Unable to beard the Shi'ite lion in its den, the U.S. and Iraqi commanders have reverted to the tactics they have periodically employed - with little effect - against Sunni insurgents and terrorists in Baghdad over the past three years: cordoning entire neighborhoods, intensive patrolling, house-to-house searches, surprise raids. But at best, these measures have brought only temporary relief. Militias and insurgents know to disappear when the U.S. military arrives. Past experience shows that once the soldiers move on, the violence returns. After three days of extended curfews and intensive patrolling in Amariyah, a mainly Sunni neighborhood that...
...Iraqi police - a force that is not only poorly trained and equipped but is also thoroughly infiltrated by militiamen more loyal to their Shi'ite religious leaders than to the Interior Ministry that pays their salaries. U.S. officials concede that several of the national police brigades that operate in Baghdad are led by officers of criminal or sectarian tendencies...
...absence of a nonmilitary solution and the political will to take on the militias, the only realistic hope for sustainable peace in Baghdad may be to keep a sizable American presence in the capital indefinitely - but that is the exact opposite of the U.S. goal to reduce its military footprint and allow Iraqi forces to take over. After the failure of the first phase of Operation Forward Together, few civilians in Baghdad have much faith in the competence of the Iraqi forces. Even in volatile neighborhoods like Abu Ghraib, long a battleground between Sunni insurgents and U.S. forces, residents...