Wednesday, Oct 13, 2004
For more than a month, Fallah Street residents in the Sadr City suburb of Baghdad had grown used to the several-times-a-day routine. Two hulking M-1 Abrams tanks, hatches closed and cannons in firing position, would roar down the street. They would get to the intersection of 'Alwa street, turn around with cars dodging and honking around them, and rumble back the way they came.
Sadr City dwellers know 'Alwa street as the Red Line. Running north-west to south-west, it has formed the border of US control over their community for the past month. On one side of the street sit American tanks; on the other, militiamen loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical cleric, who still control the centre of the suburb after two months of heavy fighting.
But for the past two days the tanks have been absent as a tenuous ceasefire has taken hold. US troops and Iraqi security forces have been giving the deal a chance after officials loyal to Mr Sadr announced their militia would hand in weapons over five days starting on Monday.
'Alwa Street is just one of many Red Lines in Iraq that US forces have had to come to grips with this year. As many as 20 cities and towns have fallen outside US control since April and the US-appointed Iraqi government would like to reassert its influence before elections due in January.
To outsiders the US strategy appears two-pronged: to keep military pressure on insurgent groups, and to cut a deal every so often and see if it works. The strategy was described by one US spokesman as "engagement with community leaders along with precision targeted strikes". It represents a dramatic shift since April, when the limits of US ability to win militarily against guerrillas was demonstrated during the siege of the the town of Falluja.
There, amid a high civilian death toll, the assault was called off after four weeks. Falluja has since become a guerrilla stronghold.
US commanders often say they can win battles in Iraq but there has to be an "Iraqi solution" to the conflict as a whole, and they express a willingness to give politics a chance.
Most Iraqis would be only too happy to give politics a try - provided US troops stay out of their communities.
Jalal 'Ubeid, who owns a tea shop on 'Alwa street, said he was happy to see peace and happy the US tanks had left.
"The entry of Americans causes problems, because there are violations," he said, being deliberately vague. He said the community welcomed Iraqi police units as well as soldiers from the new National Guard, the nascent national security force. "As long as they are Iraqis we welcome them as we would Mr Sadr," he said.
US officials still do not consider the 36,000-strong Iraqi security forces up to the task of maintaining the peace by themselves. They are under-equipped, underpaid and understaffed, and their loyalties are often suspect.
When US forces brought the Sunni town of Samarra under their control last month, Iraqi forces played an important role, according to 1st infantry division spokesmen. But the unit that did the bulk of the heavy fighting, the 36th Iraqi National Guard battalion, is recruited heavily from Kurdish Peshmerga militiamen.
It is still unclear whether more conventional units could be counted on to fight. Last April, during the battle of Falluja, most Iraqi security forces balked at assaulting one of their own cities, and US Marines had to do the fighting themselves.
But US and Iraqi officials have found a new willingness to use the National Guard forces as a key to conflict resolution in the priority "no-go" areas of Sadr City and possibly even in Falluja. Rather than use them as an attack force, the Iraqi government would prefer to negotiate entry for Iraqi National Guard forces and possibly leave US forces outside the communities.
In Falluja, US aircraft continue to strike targets almost daily while government negotiators labour on in talks with the city's rebel Mujahideen Council.
According to Sheikh 'Amer al-Jburi, spokesman for the Council of Muslim Scholars, a group of Sunni clerics who have acted as intermediaries throughout the conflict, insurgents in Falluja have agreed to allow Iraqi National Guard units to patrol their city and establish checkpoints, provided US forces stay out and cease bombing from the air.
But negotiations are at an impasse over some of the same issues that may yet torpedo peace efforts in Sadr City - the handover of weapons, house searches and an amnesty for militants.
The Mujahideen Council has so far balked at handing in weapons and at the Iraqi government's insistence that foreign fighters in Falluja be handed over to Iraqi authorities and arrested. Mr Jburi said no foreign fighters were in Falluja and the resistance was "all Iraqi".
In Sadr City, meanwhile, the ceasefire has held since Saturday, when US forces halted military operations. But the real test will probably come after the weapons handover ends on Friday. Iraqi interior minister Kassem al-Daoud told journalists over the weekend that house-to-house searches would begin after the handover, to seize any weapons stockpiles still remaining in Sadr City.
This may well be opposed by Mr Sadr, who appeared to permit the use of force to prevent such searches. The official ceasefire announcement from Mr Sadr's office, broadcast from mosques in Sadr City, forbade "confrontation with the enemy, except in the case of searches or arrests".
A similar ceasefire on August 30 collapsed after coalition troops entered Sadr City and began searching houses. There are indications that both sides may be willing to be more flexible this time to avoid a conflict.
Sa'ad al-Maliki, head of Mr Sadr's office in Sadr City, told the FT on Sunday that any house searches by the coalition should be done with advance notice and in conjunction with Iraqi police.
He also stipulated that community religious leaders, members of the municipal council, and tribal leaders should be present. The planned January elections may encourage all sides to show some restraint. Additional reporting by Dhiya Rasan
By CHARLES CLOVER
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