An Iraqi city becomes turnaround story

Each time an attack originated in the area, Risberg would have a nearby palm grove shelled, sometimes as often as every 15 minutes the whole night. He'd also further restrict residents' movement. "We were trying to show them that you're going to help us clean up this area or you're going to pay the price,'' he explains. "I didn't care which."

When local families complained that the shelling frightened their kids, he'd tell them to help hand over insurgents - only then would the shelling stop. They also replaced the local mayor and the town council, who seemed sympathetic to the insurgency. Eventually, he and others in his battalion say, the approach got results.

On election day this month, turnout topped 60 percent as Iraqi police maintained a heavy presence. US soldiers stayed in the background.

At the same time, more Iraqi police came onboard. "A lot of progress has been made in building up the Iraqi police,'' says Col. Steve Salazar, Commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat team, under which Risberg's men serve. "That's the key to getting us out of here - handing more and more over to Iraqis."

Diyala Province has one of the longest-running joint command centers. "It's the cornerstone of our program here," says Major Warren. Iraqi police and soldiers mingle with their US counterparts, tracking recent insurgent tactics and making plans.

To be sure, training local forces and putting the heat on insurgents has been the US game plan across Iraq. In some places, like Baquba, it's found partial success, while in others it's generally been a failure, as in much of Anbar Province, home to Fallujah and Ramadi.

The US has a better chance of success in cities like Baquba, which grew up along a tributary of the Tigris River, than in Anbar. Anbar's population centers lie along the Euphrates River, a key transit point for trade and ideas into Iraq.

The Euphrates flows out of parts of Syria that are influenced by the austere and heavily religious Salafy school of Islam. Euphrates river towns tend to be much more religious than their Tigris neighbors. So while towns like Baquba and Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home-town, are filled with supporters of the old regime, their relatively more secular outlooks leads to a less fanatical commitment to resistance.

How long the peace will hold in Baquba is unclear, as the city has been pacified before. Driving through Buhritz, Risberg points to the bustling Mufrak police station, a citadel-like building that was overrun by insurgents last November but had recently been reoccupied. It was the second time that had happened. In June 2004, insurgents took the station, killing 13 people, seven of them police officers.

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