Baghdad: Patrolling Yarmouk

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

On May 23 and 24, I went on a couple of evening patrols in Baghdad's Yarmouk administrative district. I went with a platoon from the U.S. Army's 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, with which I am embedded; they are working with the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division while in Iraq. The battalion of which 2-32 is a part is responsible for a large section of northwest Baghdad, which includes a couple of districts that have been hot lately, Kadamiyah and Mansour. But the districts that 2-32 patrols -- Yarmouk and Hateen -- are relatively quiet. The most dangerous aspect of patrols in those districts is the drive to reach them.

In a briefing earlier this week, I learned that 2-32 has four lines of operation: security, governance, economy, and essential services. During Wednesday night's patrol, the main objective was for the soldiers to introduce themselves to Iraqis on a couple of blocks and get the residents to fill out security surveys with basic information about themselves. The troops would also speak with the Iraqis, with the help of a translator, asking about their basic needs as well as follow-up questions geared to ferreting out a possible insurgent presence in the neighborhood.

On Wednesday's patrol I caught my first glimpse of Baghdad outside the wire in the daylight. The fact that a war is raging in this city is apparent at first glance, yet life goes on. Some of the areas we passed were composed of abandoned ruins and burned-out shells of buildings -- areas where nobody should want to set foot, not even in the daylight. Other areas were residential, with large handsome estates right next door to bombed-out buildings that must have been equally handsome years ago, before the American invasion. Some Iraqis walked down the streets casually, some were standing and conversing. Some -- particularly those with kids -- waved at the American Humvees as they passed, while others glared with manifest anger. All of the women I saw on the streets wore either burkas or heavy hijabs, and had male escorts. Although the roads themselves were relatively clean (almost certainly to reduce the chance of an IED attack), the sides of the roads were littered with trash.

I was told that there are subtle signs of whether a neighborhood is safe. One of the signs of a safe neighborhood is the presence of kids, and there were a large number of kids running around in the first neighborhood we visited. Some of the soldiers secured the street to make sure we didn't get ambushed, while the platoon leader, the translator, and a few soldiers went into houses to speak with the residents. While having a bunch of heavily armed American soldiers show up at your door unannounced must be a shock, the translator (who identified himself only as "Mo") did a good job of explaining what was going on to the residents. In every instance, the troops were invited in without incident.

At the first house we visited, the Iraqi men immediately said in English: "This is good neighborhood! It is safe neighborhood!" Lieutenant Kevin Mills of 2-32 would later tell me that this is the first thing Iraqis always tell them, "even if they're right next door to a couple of bombed-out buildings." He noted that for many, claiming the neighborhood is safe is a matter of honor: often it's only in the second or third line of questioning that you get a better read on the actual security situation, such as the fact that they heard mortar fire nearby or that a lot of strange men have been going in and out of a neighboring house at odd hours.

But this really did seem to be a safe neighborhood. The kids came right up and spoke to us with the raw enthusiasm that small children can have. When they realized that I spoke some Arabic, a throng of about five kids surrounded me. We made basic conversation, but mainly they asked me to give them things. The first thing they wanted was a football; when they realized I didn't have one, they decided they could settle for a lesser ball, and asked for a baseball. They then asked for money, for my helmet, for my anti-ballistic goggles.

The people in both of the neighborhoods we visited Wednesday were friendly. The neighborhoods were cosmopolitan, with a mix of Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds. A couple of men we encountered claimed to have been generals in the old Iraqi army. ("We run into a lot of former generals," one U.S. soldier told me. "They must have had a lot more generals than our military does.") I particularly enjoyed watching one of the servicemen, Specialist Rene Hernandez, interacting with the Iraqis. One of the other soldiers explained that Hernandez was on his third tour in the Middle East and could speak enough Arabic to joke around with Iraqis. When I drew a bit closer to investigate, I found Hernandez speaking a mix of Arabic, English, occasional Spanish, and often just plain gibberish -- at one point impersonating a donkey, which drew raucous laughter from the young men he was speaking with.

The residents had a standard battery of complaints in both neighborhoods we visited. Trash wasn't being picked up; the residents weren't receiving electricity from the city and had to rely on private generators; the price of gasoline was skyrocketing (it was 5 cents a liter under Saddam Hussein, and is now up to 70 cents a liter). I asked one of the platoon's senior men what they would do about these complaints, and he said that they would probably contract out things like trash collection and other services. Consistent with their goal of growing the country's economy, their preference is to contract these jobs out to Iraqis wherever possible.

The soldiers were proud of the difference they had made in the areas they were patrolling. Sergeant Vince Passero said that if I had been here when they first arrived in February, I would see how pronounced the change was: when they first arrived, there were more IEDs, more attacks, and the areas were less safe.

That first day of patrol, of course, does not represent the full picture of Iraq. According to recent opinion polls, about 60% of Iraqis think it's okay to kill U.S. troops. The second day of patrol provided a bit more of a glimpse of that other side of Iraq, as we were targeted by small arms fire a couple of times. The shots were far off the mark the first time; the second time, hours later, a bullet fired at us near the JSS ricocheted off a concrete barrier about eight feet away from our Humvee.

The people we encountered on the second patrol were also more distressed than the Iraqis we ran into the first night. One man, a white-haired gentleman who looked to be in his mid-fifties, had just lost his brother. "Iraq has no government, no government," he said emphatically. "In two years we are all dead. Nobody will protect us." Others spoke of the deteriorating security situation -- a point that was underscored when the soldiers tried to get information about a recent mortar attack that seemingly originated nearby. Most of the residents could provide nothing useful, explaining with a shrug that they hear mortars fired all the time.

At one point that night, we heard the sudden crackle of gun shots a few blocks away. Heavy gunfire continued for a short time, at least 20 to 30 seconds. After a quick effort to assess whether we were being attacked, the soldiers quickly determined that it was the Iraqi army firing their guns. "If they see something they don't like, they usually just fire their guns straight up in the air, sometimes for a very long time," one of the soldiers told me. "We've tried to get them to do it differently, but they haven’t listened to our tactical advice."

In a briefing on Thursday, Ambassador John Bennett told me that while many larger factors will determine the future of Iraq, patrols occur at a granular level. Wednesday and Thursday were a chance for me to step back from the big picture and get a better look at that granular level.

Thanks to Public Multimedia Inc. for its assistance in organizing my embedded reporting from Iraq. You can support my embed and independent reporting through donations to the Counterterrorism Foundation.

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