Region | Iraq
Iraqi city faces uncertainty as US forces prepare to leave
The two sides squared off in a brightly-patterned tent big enough to hold about 100 Sunni clan chiefs, the Shiite police chief, two Shiite government officials and - overseeing all - one frustrated senior US Army officer.
- AP
- Published: 23:21 November 14, 2008
- Image Credit: AP
- A US Army soldier stands guard in Iskandariyah. Violence in the city began to wane in mid-2007 after the US troop surge and the decision by some tribal leaders and insurgents to cooperate with the Americans.
Iskandariyah, Iraq: The two sides squared off in a brightly-patterned tent big enough to hold about 100 Sunni clan chiefs, the Shiite police chief, two Shiite government officials and - overseeing all - one frustrated senior US Army officer.
In the Arab world, such tents are put up for weddings, wakes or tribal gatherings where the local shaikh hears grievances. The person in this case is Lieutenant Colonel Michael Getchell, and the tent is the new battleground for American troops given the job of nation-building, city by city, in an Iraq battered by five years of violence.
It's uncharted territory for US commanders. Instead of going into battle, they are dishing out cash to businesses to generate jobs, listening to pleas to free relatives in American custody and trying to settle bitter rivalries between Shiites and Sunnis - as Getchell was doing in that tent on the edge of Iskandariyah, a mixed-population city with a complex tribal structure.
"Four or five years ago we did not know any of this," said Captain Michael Penney, 34, who is under Getchell's command and on his second tour in Iraq. "It's challenging to adjust. Last time I was here, it was strictly security, chasing the enemy, but the way things are now, I had to adjust or risk failure."
Change
Iskandariyah was once one of the country's bloodiest warfronts. But the violence began to wane in mid-2007 after the US troop surge and the decision by some tribal leaders and insurgents to co-operate with the Americans. For the past year, Getchell's troops have struggled to hold the fragile peace together. So far it's working, despite occasional flare-ups. But American involvement in almost every aspect of daily life has expanded the vacuum to be filled when US forces leave.
Most American troops based here have moved to the edge of the city, and the last soldiers will leave Iskandariyah to head home next month. Some US officers express confidence the calm will survive their departure, but the city's Sunni and Shiite leaders are far more nervous.
The opposite views are no surprise. While the Iraqis and Americans speak of each other as friends, and exchange hugs and kisses in Arab fashion, they often seem to be talking past each other. The US officers are all about team spirit and getting down to business, while the Iraqis take tribal perspectives, tend to wander around the subject, and can be loose with the truth to smear a rival or gain advantage for their clan.
The 120 US troops from Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division arrived in Iskandariyah last November. The city is a dusty place of date palms and long-slung buildings, home to a state-owned industrial complex that once had 36,000 workers making buses, trucks and agricultural machinery.
Nearly 70 per cent of the population is Shiite. The city is the gateway to the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq and a main crossroad between Baghdad and the shrine city of Karbala.
Getchell confided that the Iskandariyah police were hardly free of bias, but the Sunni shaikhs were also spinning "hearsay and rumours".
Publicly, the US commander had this to say to the Sunni shaikhs: "If you sit all day, nothing will happen. There are things that you can do to help things. Get the Sunnis recognition by persuading your people to register as voters."
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