Fallujah parallels in Ramadi

"We've done everything we agreed to - we've stayed out of the neighborhoods 99 percent of the time," Marine battalion commander Lieut. Col. Paul Kennedy told a meeting of Iraqi security officials on Tuesday. "Now we're asking that the [Iraqi]generals take the next step and ensure this stretch of road is safe - and they can walk their babies down the road."

Easier said than done, is the Iraqi reply. "We cannot guarantee that section of road," says provincial police chief Maj. Gen. Jaddan Mohamed Al Doulaymi, a 35-year veteran of the Iraqi police. "We will give orders, but maybe the police and soldiers will not obey them," he says.

Indeed, the Marines fighting here question not only the effectiveness, but the loyalties of Iraqi security forces. In this week's fighting, rarely were police or Iraqi National Guard forces visible on Ramadi streets. "They are very good at running and hiding," says Staff Sgt. Joseph Rappazzo, of Boston. Other Marines say they have been shot at by men wearing Iraqi police uniforms.

As violence has rekindled over the past week, the Marines have been forced to fight back aggressively at a time when they would prefer to avoid both the necessity and the symbolism of having downtown Ramadi barricaded by tanks, as it was Wednesday.

The more than four-hour firefight started when a supply run returning from the Marine base Combat Outpost in eastern Ramadi was struck in the early afternoon by a road bomb followed by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. A US rapid-reaction force responded, only to be hit by a similar ambush, including a car bomb.

Then "it was typical Ramadi - all hell breaks loose," says Capt. Rob Weiler of Woodbridge, Va., commander of Weapons Company, who said the fighting was some of the heaviest he's seen since the nationwide uprisings of April. Outside fighters may have organized the ambushes, although local Iraqis in this tightly knit community certainly joined the fight, Marines say. "If they want to keep fighting, we'll keep killing them," says Weiler, who like many Marines here sees no end to the conflict. His company of 154 people has suffered three killed and 54 wounded - a 35-percent casualty rate.

Thursday, hundreds of Marines flooded Ramadi neighborhoods on foot in a show of force aimed at drawing the insurgents into a fight. Troops patrolled down alleys and took up sniper positions on rooftops, exchanging in brief firefights. "Three hundred meters. Gray building. He's popping in and out," shouts Navy medic H.N. Gilbert Quesada, as he targets an insurgent shooting at the Marines.

Nearby, nervous Ramadi residents look on. Some say they would prefer that US forces withdraw to the outskirts of the city to avoid attacks that they say often kill civilians.

After Saddam fell "we had a big hope that our problems would be fixed," says Hassem Faheawi says, an unemployed worker. "But security now is zero. All we have is people killed every day.... The cemetery is full."

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