"Waiting to Get Blown Up"

Some soldiers in the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored
Division - interviewed over four days on base and on patrols - say they have
grown increasingly disillusioned about their ability to quell the violence
and their reason for fighting. The battalion of more than 750 people arrived
in Baghdad from Kuwait in March, and since then, six soldiers have been
killed and 21 wounded. "It sucks. Honestly, it just feels like we're driving
around waiting to get blown up, that's the most honest answer I could give
you," said Spec. Tim Ivey, 28, of San Antonio, a muscular former backup
fullback for Baylor University. "You lose a couple friends and it gets
hard." "No one wants to be here, you know, no one is truly enthused about
what we do," said Sgt. Christopher Dugger, the squad leader.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/26/AR2006072601666....
"Waiting to Get Blown Up"
By Joshua Partlow
The Washington Post

Thursday 27 July 2006

Some troops in Baghdad express frustration with the war and their mission.
Baghdad - Army Staff Sgt. Jose Sixtos considered the simple question
about morale for more than an hour. But not until his convoy of armored
Humvees had finally rumbled back into the Baghdad military base, and the
soldiers emptied the ammunition from their machine guns, and passed off the
bomb-detecting robot to another patrol, did he turn around in his seat and
give his answer.

"Think of what you hate most about your job. Then think of doing what
you hate most for five straight hours, every single day, sometimes twice a
day, in 120-degree heat," he said. "Then ask how morale is."

Frustrated? "You have no idea," he said.

As President Bush plans to deploy more troops in Baghdad, U.S. soldiers
who have been patrolling the capital for months describe a deadly and
infuriating mission in which the enemy is elusive and success hard to find.
Each day, convoys of Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles leave Forward
Operating Base Falcon in southern Baghdad with the goal of stopping violence
between warring Iraqi religious sects, training the Iraqi army and police to
take over the duty, and reporting back on the availability of basic services
for Iraqi civilians.

But some soldiers in the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st
Armored Division - interviewed over four days on base and on patrols - say
they have grown increasingly disillusioned about their ability to quell the
violence and their reason for fighting. The battalion of more than 750
people arrived in Baghdad from Kuwait in March, and since then, six soldiers
have been killed and 21 wounded.

"It sucks. Honestly, it just feels like we're driving around waiting to
get blown up, that's the most honest answer I could give you," said Spec.
Tim Ivey, 28, of San Antonio, a muscular former backup fullback for Baylor
University. "You lose a couple friends and it gets hard."

"No one wants to be here, you know, no one is truly enthused about what
we do," said Sgt. Christopher Dugger, the squad leader. "We were excited,
but then it just wears on you - there's only so much you can take. Like me,
personally, I want to fight in a war like World War II. I want to fight an
enemy. And this, out here," he said, motioning around the scorched
sand-and-gravel base, the rows of Humvees and barracks, toward the
trash-strewn streets of Baghdad outside, "there is no enemy, it's a faceless
enemy. He's out there, but he's hiding."

"We're trained as an Army to fight and destroy the enemy and then take
over," added Dugger, 26, of Reno, Nev. "But I don't think we're trained
enough to push along a country, and that's what we're actually doing out
here."

"It's frustrating, but we are definitely a help to these people," he
said. "I'm out here with the guys that I know so well, and I couldn't
picture myself being anywhere else."

"Never-Ending Battle"

After a five-hour patrol on Saturday through southern Baghdad
neighborhoods, soldiers from the 1st Platoon sat on wooden benches in an
enclosed porch outside their barracks. Faces flushed and dirty from the grit
and a beating sun, they smoked cigarettes and tossed them at a rusted can
that said "Butts."

The commanders in Baghdad and the Pentagon are "looking at the big
picture all the time, but for us, we don't see no big picture, it's just
always another bomb out here," said Spec. Joshua Steffey, 24, of Asheville,
N.C. The company's commanding officer, Capt. Douglas A. DiCenzo of Plymouth,
N.H., and his gunner, Spec. Robert E. Blair of Ocala, Fla., were killed by a
roadside bomb in May.

Steffey said he wished "somebody would explain to us, 'Hey, this is what
we're working for.'" With a stream of expletives, he said he could not care
less "if Iraq's free" or "if they're a democracy."

"The first time somebody you know dies, the first thing you ask yourself
is, 'Well, what did he die for?'"

"At this point, it seems like the war on drugs in America," added Spec.
David Fulcher, 22, a medic from Lynchburg, Va., who sat alongside Steffey.
"It's like this never-ending battle, like, we find one IED, if we do find it
before it hits us, so what? You know it's just like if the cops make a big
bust, next week the next higher-up puts more back out there."

"My personal opinion, I don't speak for the rest of anybody, I just
speak for me personally, I think civil war is going to happen regardless,"
Steffey responded. "Maybe this country needs it: One side has to win. Be it
Sunni, be it Shiite, one side has to win. It's apparent, these people have
made it obvious they can't live in unity."

It was dark now save for one fluorescent light and the cigarette tips
glowing red.

"I mean, if you compare the casualty count from this war to, say, World
War II, you know obviously it doesn't even compare," Fulcher said. "But
World War II, the big picture was clear - you know you're fighting because
somebody was trying to take over the world, basically. This is like, what
did we invade here for?"

"How did it become, 'Well, now we have to rebuild this place from the
ground up,'?" Fulcher asked.

He kept talking. "They say we're here and we've given them freedom, but
really what is that? You know, what is freedom? You've got kids here who
can't go to school. You've got people here who don't have jobs anymore.
You've got people here who don't have power," he said. "You know, so yeah,
they've got freedom now, but when they didn't have freedom, everybody had a
job."

Steffey got up to leave the porch and go to bed.

"You know, the point is we've lost too many Americans here already,
we're committed now. So whatever the [expletive] end-state is, whatever it
is, we need to achieve it - that way they didn't die for nothing," he said.
"We're far too deep in this now."

"Our Biggest Fear"

The largest risk facing the soldiers is the explosion of roadside bombs,
known among soldiers as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, the main
killer of U.S. troops in Iraq. Battalion commanders said they have made
great strides clearing the main highways through their southern Baghdad
jurisdiction, including the north-south thoroughfare they call Route
Jackson, but insurgents continue to adapt.

"We do an action, he counters it. It's a constant tug-of-war," said Sgt.
1st Class Scott Wilmot, an IED analyst with the battalion. "From where I
sit, the [number of] IEDs continually, gradually, goes up."

Each day, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers patrolling neighborhoods such as
Sadiyah, al-Amil and Bayaa - an area of about 40 square miles where about
half a million people live - encounter an average of one to two roadside
bombs, often triggered remotely by someone watching the convoys, he said.

"Motorola radios, cellphones, garage door openers, remote-controlled
doorbells. Anything that can transmit, they can, in theory, use," Wilmot
said. "Anybody who thinks they're stupid is wrong."

After the bombing in February of a golden-domed Shiite shrine in
Samarra, sectarian killings between rival Shiite and Sunni Muslim factions
exploded, and have continued to take thousands of Iraqi lives despite a
security crackdown in Baghdad that started last month. U.S. military
commanders in Baghdad say the killings extend beyond sectarian motives, to
include tribal rivalries, criminal activity and intra-sect gang warfare.
Most of the killing takes place out of sight of the Americans, commanders
said.

"At this point, it's getting a little difficult to tell which groups are
responsible," said Capt. Eric Haas of Williamsburg, Va., an intelligence
officer for the 2nd Battalion. "Our biggest fear is this turning into a
Bosnia-Kosovo situation" where the police are allowing the slaughter to take
place.

"We're definitely making progress," he added. "It's going to take some
time to get there."

Into this fray, day and night, come the U.S. soldiers. Each infantryman
conducts an average of 10 patrols a week, for a total of 50 to 60 grueling
hours, "and it is having an effect," said the battalion's executive officer,
Maj. Jeffrey E. Grable.

"Sometimes it's not obvious, the fruit of their labor," said Grable. But
the patrols have "a deterrent effect on sectarian violence. Unfortunately,
we just cannot be everywhere all the time."

"Only Promises"

The patrol led by Capt. Mike Comstock, 27, of Boise, Idaho - two Humvees
and a Bradley Fighting Vehicle - started at 1 p.m. on Saturday. At about 15
miles per hour, the patrol passed down blighted Iraqi streets with dozens of
cars waiting in gas lines, piles of smoldering trash, rubble-strewn vacant
lots and gaping bomb craters.

On one stop, the patrol pulled up to the Saadiq al-Amin mosque in the
Bayaa neighborhood. Some mosques in the city have stockpiled weapons and
been operations centers for insurgents - used, said one officer, "like we
use National Guard armories back home."

"How are you doing today, sir? A little hot?" Comstock asked Walid
Khalid, 45, the second-ranking cleric of the Sunni mosque, who opened the
gate wearing sandals and a white dishdasha , a traditional robe.

"Our imam was killed three weeks ago," Khalid said through an
interpreter.

"This is actually the first I've heard about this," Comstock said,
taking notes.

"The people around here are afraid to come here to pray on Fridays,"
Khalid said, going on to explain that the mosque didn't have water or
electricity. He said that he was worried about corrupt Iraqi police
attacking the mosque, and that he needed permits for the four AK-47 assault
rifles he kept inside.

"Would it help if we brought the national police here so you could meet
them?" Comstock asked. "Maybe you guys could start building trust together."

"We would like to cooperate, but sometimes those people come to attack
us, and we want to defend the mosque," Khalid said. "Inside the mosque is
our border. If they cross this line, we will shoot these guys."

Comstock's patrol stopped at Bayaa homes and shops to conduct a "SWET
assessment": checking the sewage, water and electricity services available
to residents. Most said the sewage service was adequate, but the electricity
functioned no more than four hours a day. Some said they had little running
water and dumped their trash along the main streets. Inner neighborhood
roads were blocked with slabs of concrete and the trunks of palm trees. The
most repeated concern among residents was a lack of safety.

"I can't fix electricity or sewers all the time. We recommend projects
to be done," Comstock told Muhammed Adnan, a Bayaa resident. "Patrolling
your neighborhood is one thing we can do. I hope that helps."

"We just receive promises around here, nothing else," Adnan, 40, told
Comstock. "Three years, just promises, and promises and promises."

Comstock wrote down the words: "only promises."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. )
--
+

"It is even probable that the supremacy of nations
may be determined by the possession of available
petroleum and its products." - President Coolidge,
We Fight for Oil, Ludwell Denny - Alfred A Knopf, 1928

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

"Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their
dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens."
- William H. Beveridge, 1944

"The power of accurate observation is called cynicism
by those who have not got it." - G. B. Shaw

Want to know what's really going on in Iraq?
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/wakeup.html

The Rise and Fall of the Holy Roller Empire
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/armageddon.html