Iraq War ReportU.S. builds Baghdad garrisons to fight violence By Ibon Villelabeitia
Mon Mar 5, 6:15 AM ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Barricaded in a small garrison in a Baghdad neighborhood, U.S. soldier Aaron Larson keeps an uneasy eye on the traffic for suicide car bombers.
ADVERTISEMENT
A mortar bomb had just landed a few meters away, shaking the sandbagged outpost where some 30 American soldiers are hunkered down with Iraqi police and army under a new security plan to rein in sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital.
"We feel like sitting ducks here," said Larson. "They are watching us all the time. We don't know what they'll do next."
U.S. commanders are moving troops from the relative safety of their sprawling bases and stationing them in small outposts in Baghdad's most violent districts in a pivotal tactical shift.
More than a dozen joint security stations have opened in a fresh approach designed by General David Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, a counter-insurgency expert who warns troops to be ready to be "greeted with a handshake or a hand grenade."
The effort, one of the main components of a Baghdad security plan seen as the last chance to avert all-out civil war, aims to break the militants' grip on neighborhoods by expanding troop presence and building on local intelligence.
Rather than launching incursions into strongholds and pulling troops back into their bases, the goal now is to set up 24-hour neighborhood garrisons, where U.S. troops live with their Iraqi counterparts, U.S. commanders said.
The U.S. military will establish around 30 outposts, including one in the Shi'ite militia bastion of Sadr City.
So far, the plan has met little resistance, but it has placed hundreds of U.S. soldiers at greater risk, leaving them more vulnerable to insurgent attacks and in danger of being caught up in the middle of sectarian fighting.
NEIGHBOURHOOD FORTS
From the outside, the outposts look like frontier forts.
Many of these buildings were dilapidated police stations or community halls before they were upgraded. U.S. soldiers crouch in rooftop sniper nests with views of markets and blue-tiled mosque domes. Barbed wire and cement walls protect the buildings from car bombs and rockets.
"We are in the middle of everything," said gunner Josh Barlow, gripping his M240 machine gun at a joint security station in the central neighborhood of Karrada.
"You gotta keep your eyes open all the time. You never know if somebody is just standing or planting a bomb," said Barlow, from Rapid City, South Dakota.
At a base in Rustimaya, east of Baghdad, soldiers enjoy American-style fast food, Internet cafes and even a recent visit by the Buffalo Bills cheerleaders, who signed autographs and posed with ecstatic troops next to the tanks.
But at the spartan joint security stations, soldiers sleep in mud-caked cots, take cold showers in crude bathrooms and eat MREs, or meals-ready-to-eat.
"I hardly get any sleep here," said Private Miguel Burgos, a gunner from Puerto Rico. "I can hear the blasts at night."
During the day, U.S. and Iraqi commanders sort through intelligence tips and coordinate checkpoints. At night, they drink tea together and share family pictures.
"I have taught them some Spanish and learned some Arabic. We sometimes play some soccer in the parking lot," Burgos said.
The outposts offer the Americans a chance to try Iraqi dishes away from their bases, where buffet food is brought in from Kuwait. Falafel sandwiches have become a hit. Iraqis, meanwhile, seem to find American beef jerky peculiar and are resistant to changing their morning omelettes for Cheerios.
American commanders credit a decline in sectarian murders in Baghdad to the "clear, hold and build" approach of the outposts but have warned that militants could be waiting them out.
General Abdul Hamid, police chief for eastern Baghdad, said gunmen will probably sit tight until the Americans leave.
"It's like a water balloon. You press on one side and the water goes to another side," he said.
