Word: dora
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Counterinsurgency is all about the people," says Crider. And residents of the predominantly Sunni neighborhood called Dora don't trust the Iraqi government, believing that the Shi'ites who run it are controlled by Iran. They trust the Americans instead. "When you realize they think we are the government then we need to take the initiative. They think if we can launch a missile from the Persian Gulf and destroy Saddam's palaces we can do anything." Like throw a switch and provide 24-hour electricity across the Iraqi capital. They look at us, says Crider, and think...
When Captain Nicholas M. Cook arrived in the Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad in May, the place was like a ghost town. Nearly 50% of the homes were abandoned and the residents that remained rarely ventured out. Only the crackle of gunfire pierced the streets. "Everyday it was like clockwork - 10 to 11:30 am gunfire would start. They would break for lunch and then start up again in the afternoon," says Cook, a West Point graduate from Lansing, Michigan who is on his second tour in Iraq...
...Dora is an affluent, upper-middle class neighborhood, home to many former Iraqi army generals and intelligence officers, almost completely Sunni and Baathist. It was just the kind of place hit hard by the 2003 orders to disband the Iraqi army and purge the government of ranking Baath party members...
...days of decapitated heads, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire are still fresh in the minds of Dora's residents. Whether they will become a thing of the past never to return is anyone's guess. "My feeling is that those days are over. But will life ever really improve here?" asks Cook. "That's up to the government...
...last stable part of Iraq no longer feels quite the safe haven it had become for thousands of refugees from the civil war in the rest of the country. "We fled from Baghdad, and now we are afraid of the Turks," said Mary Toma, a Christian refugee from the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad who has taken shelter with her husband and two teenage daughters in the mountain village of Gededky, within artillery range of Turkey. "Where should I go? What should I do?" she asked...