Baghdad security plan puts US forces, civilians perilously close

The US killed three Iraqi civilians earlier this month, highlighting the risks of American troops taking the fight into neighborhoods.

By Sam Dagher | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the April 24, 2007 edition

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BAGHDAD - A massive funeral tent stood on the street in Baghdad's Al Amel neighborhood. Taped verses from the Koran echoed from loudspeakers. Black-clad women wailed and slapped their faces in sorrow.

On the surface, the scene last week was nothing unusual for Baghdad. But instead of mourning those killed by insurgents or militiamen, this time residents grieved for a mother and two of her adult sons killed in a US helicopter strike earlier this month.

While the Americans insist those killed were insurgents who had previously fired "small arms" with "hostile intent" on a US combat outpost (COP), neighbors see it differently. Witnesses say the men weren't firing on Americans, but reacting to what they thought was a Sunni insurgent attack. It proved to be a deadly mistake in the ever more dense fog of war in Iraq.

Regardless, the Amel incident underscores the deepening complexities for US troops as they wade farther into neighborhoods, living side by side with Iraqis as part of the plan to secure Baghdad.

Residential alleyways and streets are now becoming battlefields. Infantrymen, trained mainly to engage and kill the enemy and protect themselves from attacks, are being asked to tackle a sectarian war in which the battlefields are neighborhoods and the enemy is becoming harder to spot.

"The problem with the Army is that they are here to fight and it's all about combat power when it's no longer that kind of a war," says a US military officer stationed in Iraq and who is critical of many aspects of the Baghdad security plan.

There is no question that the number of Iraqi civilians killed at the hands of US troops is a mere fraction of those falling every day to car bomb and suicide attacks. But when Iraqis do get caught in American crossfire for whatever reason, those deaths, and the often confusing aftermath of investigations and the paperwork for compensation, only serve to fuel the anger and animosity of Iraqis toward US troops.

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RICH CLABAUGH – STAFF