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BEIRUT -- In my previous post, I mentioned that Maj. Gen Ashraf Rifi, the head of the Internal Security Forces told me, he "thinks the army will have to go in" to Nahr el-Bared to uproot the militants of Fatah al-Islam.

"They are very dangerous," he told me in his plush office. "We have no choice, we have to combat them."

Perhaps I underplayed his comments, because if he's right, "going in" would be a huge development. The Palestinians have run their own security in the 12 camps under a 1969 agreement brokered by the Arab League. Now, that agreement was allegedly revoked in 1987 by the Lebanese Parliament, but there's still at least a tacit agreement that the Palestinians mind their own store.

That's not really a viable security option anymore, as we can see just north of Tripoli.

Now, what was Rifi trying to say? Was he merely repeating the phrase of my question -- "Will the army have to go in?" -- because his english isn't so good, as he protested a couple of times? (He spoke well enough to conduct an interview, mind you.) Was he trying to emphasize the point that there are elements in the government that are rarin' to go get those Fatah al-Islam guys while others, perhaps Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, are willing to take a slower approach?

Or was he trying, in his own locution, to emphasize the importance for Lebanon of winning this battle? Because this is make or break time for Lebanon as a sovereign state.

If the army fails at this task of defeating Fatah al-Islam -- and I'm not talking about some mealy-mouthed "arrangement" where a few of the militants are hauled in -- it will undermine the legitimacy of the army as a state institution. And that will very much play right into Hezbollah's hands.

See, Hezbollah has often said it is needed as an armed resistance because the army is too weak to stand up to Israel. (True.) But the Shi'ite group won't put itself under the command of the army because to do so would mean that any attack it launched on Israel such as, say, capturing and killing Israeli troops, would mean Lebanon was the aggressor and as such would bring down the wrath of the Israeli military on Lebanon.

Of course, this is exactly what happened last summer, but let's not quibble. In Lebanese politics, there are apparently no limits on hypocrisy.

If the army fails and is seen as weak or illegitimate, Hezbollah has a strong argument for saying it must keep its arms for the defense of Lebanon. Now, one of the definitions of sovereignty is the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, or violence. Since Lebanon's government and weak army would be unable to claim that following a loss at the hands of Fatah al-Islam, there would be no real sovereignty here. Hezbollah 1, Lebanon 0.

One can argue whether a sovereign Lebanon is a good or bad thing in the grand scheme of things, an argument I can't address on this humble blog, although I favor the former. But it's vitally important to the Lebanese government.

It's so important that some elements of the government, including Rifi's former boss, cabinet member Ahmad Fatfat, are calling for storming the gates of Nahr el-Bared.

There is some buzz that this will be resolved in 48 hours. That may be true, or it might not be. A lot can happen in this small country in that time.

By the way, the donations are working again, and covering this place ain't cheap. Fixers, rented cars, hotel rooms, etc. all cost money and freelancing for newspapers only covers part of it. If you'd like me to keep blogging the developments in Lebanon's latest crisis, please consider dropping some coin in the donate link below and to the right. Thanks.

BEIRUT -- Lebanon is truly a strange -- yet tasty -- place. Two hours ago, I had Lebanese soldiers pointing guns at me over a traffic snafu (my driving or theirs, I'm not sure which and I'll bet neither do they) and now I'm at Julia's enjoying a righteous grilled chicken salad with a subtle basil vinaigrette.

But I wonder if my predictions of a looming showdown were premature. It's true that hundreds of Lebanese troops are ringing the Palestinian camp of Nahr el-Bared, where "hundreds" of Fatah al-Islam fighters are holed up -- along with about 18,000 Palestinian civilians. And also it's true that the U.S. and other Arab countries have sped up the delivery of military aid to Lebanon: more ammo, night vision goggles and the like. And it's true that Defense Minister Elias Murr has said that death or surrender are the only options for the fighters. Furthermore, the chief of the Internal Security Forces, Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi told me not 30 minutes ago that he thought the army would have to go in.

But that rascally sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has thrown a spanner in the works, it seems. Yesterday was Liberation Day, a national holiday commemorating the retreat of the Israelis from southern Lebanon in 2000. Nasrallah took the opportunity to warn against going into the camps, saying an assault by the army was "a red line" and that the opposition wanted no part of it.

"The Nahr al-Bared camp and Palestinian civilians are a red line," Nasrallah said, according to Al-Nahar. "We will not accept or provide cover or be partners in this."

"Does it concern us that we start a conflict with Al Qaeda in Lebanon and consequently attract members and fighters of Al Qaeda from all over the world to Lebanon to conduct their battle with the Lebanese army and the rest of the Lebanese?" he added.

Fair enough, I guess. But more to the point, his address and his opposition to a military solution will reverberate throughout the army, about half of which is Shi'a. A sharp producer I know up north painted an alternate scenario than the al-Götterdämmerung scenario presently being awaited.

Nasrallah's address stopped the state in its tracks, said the producer, because of his influence among Shi'a. Going into the camp now, with half the army Shi'a, risks splitting the army while at the same time risking a general uprising among the 350,000 to 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon. Without a unified army, there can be no unified Lebanon. The remnants of the military would collapse into militias. And that's the end of the ball game. Civil War 2.0. Talk about an ’80s revival! (Only without the music, hair or Molly Ringwald.)

What's more likely, he said, is that in the coming days or, more likely, weeks, a number of Fatah al-Islam members will be "caught" trying to "escape" the camp. The Army will announce it has caught the "criminals" who started this whole thing with their attack on army positions last weekend. Shaker al-Abssi, the leader of Fatah al-Islam, will evade capture.

And the rest? Well, it will turn out that Fatah al-Islam wasn't quite as big an organization as people thought it was.

The army would look like it accomplished something, massive bloodshed would be avoided (a good thing) and, like most issues in Lebanon, this whole ugly episode would be suspended but not resolved.

Does it solve the problem? No, but looking the other way and seeing what they want to is a Lebanese tradition.

Time will tell if the producer or the doomsayers are right.

By the way, the donations are working again, and covering this place ain't cheap. Fixers, rented cars, hotel rooms, etc. all cost money and freelancing for newspapers only covers part of it. If you'd like me to keep blogging the developments in Lebanon's latest crisis, please consider dropping some coin in the donate link below and to the right. Thanks.

JUST OUTSIDE NAHR EL-BARED REFUGEE CAMP -- Just at the edge of this now devastated refugee camp, the Lebanese Army is showing signs of preparing for a showdown with the Fatah al-Islam jihadist group.

Trucks full of ammunition have been seen rumbling north on the road from Tripoli toward the camp. Many of the Palestinian refugees who are able to leave have left, leaving fewer civilian targets to be hit -- although the toll on that end is already crushingly high, too high for a people who have seen nothing but pain and hardship since 1948.

Since 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, an informal truce has held between the militants still holed up in the camp and the Lebanese army, but Fatah al-Islam has vowed to fight "until the last drop of blood" (usually a sign that they're getting close to the last drop) and the Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr told al-Arabiya television: "Preparations are seriously under way to end the matter. The army will not negotiate with a group of terrorists and criminals. Their fate is arrest, and if they resist the army, death."

At the moment, it's still quiet up here. But it's unclear how long that will last.

BEIRUT -- Jesus. Another car bomb just went off a few minutes ago in upscale Verdun, an upscale Muslim neighborhood full of tony shops. I can't tell yet, but there appear to be much more damage and casualties than last night's car bomb in Achrafiyeh. The cars are still burning as I type. The neighborhood is in chaos as soldiers and rescue workers try to keep order and reach the wounded amid the flames. Updates as I can get them.

UPDATE 1: Future TV, affiliated with the Hariri family, says four people have been injured in the bomb.

I'd also like to write a little history on Fatah al-Islam. As the Lebanese Army fights a pitched battle with the Palestinian militant group, the question for many in Beirut -- especially those who support the current government -- is what role Syria may be playing in the current drama to the north. 

The timing, according to some political observers, is telling coming as it does on the heels of the introduction of a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council to set up an international tribunal that would try suspects in the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. Syria, which opposes the tribunal, could have pulled the strings on Fatah al-Islam, a group that government supporters say heeds its masters in Damascus.

National police commander Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi said yesterday that Damascus was behind Fatah al-Islam's recent surge, with only a bit of al Qaeda ideology thrown in. 

"Perhaps there are some deluded people among them but they are not al Qaida," Rifi said. "This is imitation al Qaida, a 'Made in Syria' one."

Muhammad Shatah, a senior advisor to Prime Minister Fuad Siniora -- whose government is locked in a power struggle with opposition groups that support Syria -- also said Syria was trying to derail the tribunal, which is widely expected in to implicate senior Syrian officials in the Hariri killing, by sowing discord in Lebanon. The widely held belief among government members is that the leader of Fatah al-Islam, Shaker al-Abssi, is a member of the Syrian mukhabarrat and was sent here last year to stir up trouble after making a deal for an early release from a Syrian prison. 

But one longtime observer of the Palestinian camps and Islamist movements doesn't see Syria's direct involvement. Kassem Kassir, a journalist for the pro-government newspaper al Mustaqbal who is an expert on these groups and has interviewed members of the group in Nahr el-Bared, said Fatah al-Islam, and its leader Shaker al-Abssi are supported by Salafist groups in the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan that share al Qaida's ideology more than they are by Syria. Al-Abssi's link to Syria comes from the long history of attempts by Syria to use the Palestinians for its own purposes against Israel. 

Al Abssi used to be a member of the main Palestinian faction, Fatah, founded by former PLO chairman Yassir Arafat. He later joined Fatah al-Intifada, a fake group set up by Syria in an attempt to turn Palestinians' national yearnings to Syria's advantage. But with little support among the Palestinian population, which by and large stayed loyal to homegrown groups such as Fatah and Hamas, Fatah al-Intifada languished. Last year, in a bid to strike out on his own, Kassir said, Al Abssi split and formed Fatah al-Islam. 

It was possibly a natural split, he said, because Al Abssi is a Jordanian of Palestinian descent with ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was killed last year. Today he gets money and men from Salafist groups in the Gulf, Iraq and Jordan who share his jihadist view of an Islamic caliphate stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. 

Kassir acknowledged that Fatah al-Islam appears to be very well armed and those weapons had to have come through Syria at some point, indicating some degree of cooperation, but Syria often allows groups other than its main ally Hezbollah to arm up. 

Hezbollah has constraints on what it can do, given its image as a Lebanese resistance with members of parliament, said Reva Bhalla, director of geopolitical analysis at Stratfor, a Houston-based security firm. It is reluctant to turn its guns on the government, given that it's part of it and it still hope to be seen as a legitimate part of the Lebanese political process. Groups such as Fatah al-Islam have more flexibility. 

"Syria is funneling weapons and men to them, keeping them there (in Lebanon) and they're a bargaining tactic against the United States," which is currently talking with Syria's main ally, Iran, over a possible détente in the Middle East, she said. Significantly, she added, Iran has signaled that it doesn't oppose the Hariri tribunal, which is making Syria very nervous that its main ally might be hanging it out to dry. 

"Syria is watching very closely that it doesn't get screwed in any deal," and any support it may be giving to groups such as Fatah al-Islam is to remind the United States that it has chips it can still play.     

Regardless of how the battle with Fatah al-Islam plays out, there are other groups that Syria has more direct ties with, Kassir said, such as Jund al-Sham (Army of the Sham) and Osbat al-Ansar (the League of Partisans), which are based in other Palestinian camps in Lebanon. They all share a similar ideology and all benefit from Syria's looking the other way as materiel crosses the border coming from and heading to Iraq. 

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," he said. 

BEIRUT -- Lebanon was rocked by violence today with dozens killed in fighting in the country's north and a car bomb in a predominantly Christian neighborhood of Beirut that killed one person and wounded up to a dozen.

The day started with clashes in the northern city of Tripoli between the Lebanese Army and the Palestinian militant group, Fatah al-Islam, which the Lebanese government says is backed by Syria and shares an ideology with al Qaida. At least 22 soldiers and 17 militants were killed in fighting that lasted through much of the day.

But by the time calm had been imposed up north, a car bomb shattered windows and collapsed a building in the east Beirut neighborhood of Acrafiyeh. Reports say a woman was killed and about a dozen wounded.

The bomb was placed in a car lot next to the popular ABC Achrafiyeh mall, and the timing of the blast -- at 11:40 p.m. -- suggested that its intent was to cause panic and fear among the crowd exiting the movie theaters at the mall.

"It was just to scare people," said a man in the car lot who declined to be identified. "If they really wanted to cause damage, they would have put it in the parking garage."

The bomb left a crater about 4 feet deep and 9 feet wide, and police said the explosives were estimated to weigh 22 pounds. The blast -- heard across the city -- gutted cars, set vehicles ablaze and shattered store and apartment windows.

Hamid and Claudine Saliba, both 39, live across the street from the parking lot where the car exploded.

"In Lebanon, you expect anything," said Claudine, and after today's violence up north, she and her husband were on guard. "But not in Achrafiyeh!"

They spoke from Hamid's mother's home, which is two doors down from their own, and the devastation in the house was near total. Graceful Ottoman windows jambs were ripped from the walls and heavy doors torn from their hinges. Luckily for Hamid, his mother had left the house on vacation two days previously, so there were no injuries.

This is the latest in a string of car bombs that many in Lebanon suspect is aimed at destabilizing the country so that Syria can re-impose its hegemony it enjoyed for 29 years.

Initially welcomed as protectors during Lebanon's 15-year-long civil war, Syrian maintained an iron control over Lebanon after the war ended, effectively occupying it from 1990-2005, when it withdrew its troops. The withdrawal was forced upon Damascus following massive popular protests, which the Lebanese call the "independence uprising," in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many in Lebanon blame Syria for that killing and the waves of violence that have followed.

Lebanon has been on a knife's edge since December of last year when Hezbollah and its allies, who support Syria, pulled out of the government in protest over legislation forming an international tribunal that would handle the Hariri case. Syria and its supporters vehemently oppose the tribunal, forcing the Lebanese government to petition the United Nations to impose the tribunal under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, meaning it does not require Lebanese parliamentary approval. The tribunal is widely expected to indict high-level members of the Syrian regime, including the brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Tonight's bombing -- which may or may not be tied to the fighting in the north -- could be seen as a message that Syria's agents in Lebanon are prepared to unleash more violence if the tribunal is imposed on Lebanon.

Bassam Talal, a trader at the Iraq Stock Exchange, works the boards at the bourse in Baghdad. © 2006 Bill Putnam/ZUMA.

BAGHDAD -- Bassam Talal, a wisp of a man with large ears and doleful eyes, is in his element on the floor of the Iraq Stock Market. Every Monday and Wednesday morning, he pirouettes between the other 50 or so brokers, nipping up to the white boards that line the wall of the trading pit. He marks 10,000 shares of Baghdad Carbonated Drinks bought for 2 dinars a share (a $13 trade), 5,000 shares of al-Hillal Water Company sold for 2.05 dinar a share (less than $7). He waves colored order slips above his head and darts between the white boards and the investors, separated from the pit by a waist-high barrier. About 200 individual investors eye the Arabic scribbles of the orders on the wall. Some bring opera glasses. They're mostly older, heavyset men in suits, with a few traditionally dressed Bedouin guys hanging around. When the see a price they like, they gesture to Talal or another broker and point.

All investment comes with risk, but Iraq's investors face special -- and deadlier -- risks. Baghdad is the prize in a civil war that rages even as the Iraq Stock Market attempts to rebuild itself and Iraq's shattered economy. The fighting that often rages outside the old hotel which houses the bourse is marked by violence that is indiscriminate and savage. In Baghdad, car bombs, ethnic cleansing and massacres are the hallmarks of this fight. Located in Hayy al-Awaya, a Christian neighborhood, massive concrete barriers surround the entrance to deter car bombs, and grim gunmen carefully search anyone who gets close.

"During the session, I have about 15 minutes of watching the prices," says Taha Ahmed Abdul Salam, the president of the Exchange. "The rest of the time I will be in the street watching my guards who are watching the buildings. And I have some information from the police. When I hear something bad, believe me, I will go and search around the building myself."

He's constantly engaged in a juggle of security and business. His refusal to halt trading for anything is a point of pride for him, a show of defiance. On Feb. 22, the day the Askariya shrine in Samarra was destroyed, touching off Iraq's latest round of violence that has yet to subside, "I didn't stop the trading," he says. "I let the trading go on, and I didn't mention anything to anybody."

Trades at the stock market are still done using colored pens and white boards © 2006 Bill Putnam/ZUMAThe story of the Iraq Stock Exchange has as many ups and downs as a penny stock. It opened in 1992, but Saddam's government heavily regulated and manipulated it, and often used it for money laundering. Prices were only allowed to move 5 percent in either direction. By the time U.S. troops bore down on Baghdad in April 2003, about 140 companies were trading on it and its clientele was composed of businessmen and wealthy Ba'athists who had socked some cash away. The Americans closed the old market but re-opened it in June 2004 under Coalition Provisional Authority Order No. 74. The new market has just 15 companies, many of the old brokers and traded about 500 million Iraqi dinars a day back then -- about $333,000.

Today -- from a business point of view -- things aren't much better. Though there are 94 companies listed, the market sees only about $1 million in business each session, Salam says. Banking is the largest and most active sector, because they have holdings of hard currency and have formed partnerships with foreign banks like HSBC.

The high-point of the market, according to data provided by the economic section of the embassy, was around the end of October, when the permanent constitution was approved. Total market capitalization surged to almost $2.5 billion, but it's since plummeted to $1.25 billion as the political process drags on with no end in sight. (Iraq's market is the smallest in the region, with even the Palestinian stock market dwarfing it at $25 billion -- and they don't even have a real state yet.)

Although it's legal for foreign investors to own up to 49 percent of an Iraqi company, it's not yet been implemented because of technical hurdles, which means the flood of foreign investment predicted when the market reopened hasn't happened yet. What local investment there is also sidelined because of a steady exodus of wealthy Iraqis and their money to neighboring countries drives a vicious cycle of violence, insecurity and poor economic performance that might lessen the violence.

"People are worried about their money," says Talal in a break from trading. "The price drops continue, so people are trying to sell as fast as they can so they don't lose a lot."

There is a notional regulatory regime with the Iraqi Securities Commission, but there Salam and the brokers, who own the market, do the real regulation. They all know one another from the old Saddam-era exchange, which helps prevent insurgents or criminals from gaming the market. Such familiarity feels good to Iraqis, but it seems sketchy to westerners used to more transparent, rules-based trading rather than a system run by a bunch of buddies.

But if you talk to June Reed, a senior consultant for private sector development at the embassy, things are going pretty well. "This market has functioned very well through several interim governments," she said. "Make no mistake: There is investment in Iraq."

© 2006 Bill Putnam/ZUMAReed, a former investment banker from New York for Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse, refused to budged off her cautious optimism about the market, stressing that great things were in store for the Iraq Stock Market when a permanent government is in place and a planned automation program is established. "Here it is truly the potential that is the most important thing," she says. But given the archaic, anarchic and opaque nature of the market ("It was unusual to see grease boards, handwriting, etc.," Reed says) any foreign investors are rightly worried that they could lose their shirts before they ever know what happened.

In the coming weeks, she says, that's going to change, thanks to a proposed automated system for trading securities that will create a central, networked electronic depository, due to be completed by the end of the year. There will be automated sales, clearing and depository functions like the NASDAQ, she says. "It's very high tech." Brokers like Talal will be able to respond to orders from his desk at his firm, the Nineveh Brokerage, rather than navigate the IED-peppered streets of Baghdad. There are even plans for trading over the Internet.

But as the American military has learned, whiz-bang technology alone won't make people feel safe enough to invest big money into a place like Iraq. The lack of political stability leads to a security vacuum, which leads to car bombs, which leads to further capital flight. "The situation right now in Iraq is not stable. There are many challenges for the stock exchange," says Salam gloomily. "The investors are all waiting for things to happen to the economy, the services. I believe everyone here is waiting for good things to happen."

[Ed. note: I wrote this for Fast Company after I left Baghdad, but it was killed because I had the bad luck of filing it the day before the NYT story ran. Such is the journalism biz. But better to blog than to never been seen at all!]

FALLUJAH -- Last week, I was in Fallujah working on a story about how the city is one year later. Well, here it is.

A note on this embed: Someone asked me if I had to "clear" this story with the U.S. military. No, I did not. They had absolutely no input on this story. i didn't show the copy to anyone but my editors and they didn't show it to anyone else.

As for media events to show me how great Fallujah was going, I can't speak for what CNN saw a while back, but I was shown several things that were obviously pre-packaged media showcases, and I refused to write about them -- with one exception. One such event was the delivery of supplies to the hospital. This was the first supply drop to the hospital since the invasion of November 2004 and it consisted of blankets and kerosine heaters. Nice enough, I suppose, but good equipment and medicine would have been better. It was also a clumsily staged event with the Marines taking their own camera people and showcasing themselves. The Marine major who was providing security took me aside and apologized because, as he said, "I thought this was going to be something real." His embarrassment was evident.

I wrote about that in my file, but because of space restrictions, it didn't make it in. That's life in the magazine business.

Now, as for me being a shameful excuse for a human being -- and I'm talking to you, "Susan" -- get over yourself. My story was hardly cheerleading and I'm sick and tired of people who think any coverage of the military is somehow being complicit with war crimes. The Marines I met committed no crimes, wanted to get home and realized they were doing an often pointless task, a feeling I tried to convey in my story. If my reporting doesn't fit your preconceived notions of what's happening, tough. I'm right and you're not. Referencing Dahr Jamal, who came over here with an agenda to "document atrocities," is not journalism -- it's activism. And if that's what you want, go to another damn blog.

HUSEYBAH -- Hello all. Currently in Huseybah covering Operation Steel Curtain. Will write more later.

UPDATE 11/9/05 2:45:20 AM: And here it is on TIME.com. The most interesting aspect to me was about the tribal politics the U.S. is exploiting.

A note on civilians. I didn't see one civilian hurt or mistreated while I was with the Marines of the 2/1. For one, there aren't many there. Huseybah, normally about 30,000 people, is almost abandoned. I made it halfway through the city, and found maybe 10 houses with families in them. Best estimate is that about 5,000 civilians remain.

Secondly, I never saw a Marine shoot first. They never fired a round unless fired upon, which is in keeping with their rules of engagement. Now, when they were fire upon, even if it was just some guy taking potshots, the entire company would open up. If they brought the tanks in, it was all over.

Some will say, "yeah, well, that unit was probably behaving themselves because they had press with them." Well, I moved freely between Fox and Golf company, and all the various platoons over the three days I was up there. They were often completely surprised to see me and it was sort of a "spot press check" on the squads. Secondly, the New York Times and CNN is embedded with the 3/6 in the north of the city. No one is reporting significant effronteries to civilians. And if they are behaving themselves because of the press, doesn't that make the case for more embedding not less, as the press is fulfilling its watchdog role and keeping people honest -- and, presumably by extension, civilians alive?

Anyway, I'm back in Baghdad now.

CAMP DELTA, al-Karma, Iraq -- Must make this one short and sweet, as I'm running of of battery on my laptop, but since Thursday evening, I've been embedded with the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines of the II Marine Expeditionary Force surrounding the garrisoned town of Fallujah. I've not yet had a chance to get into the city proper yet, as the 2-2 doesn't operate there (that's the 2-6 and 2-7's area of operations) but al-Karmah is an interesting little town.

It's just to the north of Fallujah and Camp Delta, home of Fox Company, is nestled in between Fallujah and al-Karmah next to the old Oil-for-Food warehouse. (It's now an alleged staging area for the insurgents in the area who regularly poke their heads up and take potshots at the Fox Company.)

I just want to share some notes and observations I've made over the last two days.

Friday, October 28, 2005
For the short drive to Camp Delta just across a half-hearted stream from the town of al-Karma, the Marines of Fox Company ride only at night. They do this to minimize the IED threat, says Capt. Mike Estes, the company commander, which is still ever-present almost a year after U.S. troops attacked the rebel stronghold of Fallujah and its surrounding towns, such as al-Karmah. Dust and grit pepper the googles of Fox Company, because they ride in high-backed, up-armored lorries instead of humvees.

Earlier, Capt. Chad Walton, a spokesman for the 2nd Marines at Camp Fallujah to the south, said that Fallujah was closed to the outside world, with only residents allowed in after showing ID cards that proved their address. The Marines man five entry checkpoints to the city, turning away anyone who can't provide the proper credentials or whoever they deem suspicious.

"Obviously, it's not foolproof," says Walton. "But it's way better than it was."

The Marines of Fox Company agree; they talk of driving through the old city without having a shot fired at them. But Fallujah is thoroughly occupied. Iraqi police and Army take second stage to the Americans, who aren't shy about showing their presence, in contrast to Baghdad where U.S. patrols are almost scarce these days until you get near major installations such as the airport or the Green Zone. The Iraqis aren't prepared to take over security operations yet, and it will likely be years before they can. Is a thorough occupation what it's going to take to pacify the restive cities of the Sunni heartland?

Saturday, October 29, 2005
It's still dark when the Marines of 3rd platoon, Fox Company starts out. The idea is to get a jump on their quarry, the leader of a mortar team that has been peppering Fox Company's base, Camp Delta just south of al-Karmah. The air is cool on the skin and the sun brightens the sky from the direction of Baghdad. Ahead, date palms are black against the indigo sky, and lush greenery of reeds, cottontails, rice, dates and olive trees line the dirt roads.

3rd Platoon takes it easy. The commander, Lt. Anthony Carter of Endicolt, N.Y., doesn't believe in the brute force method of cordon-and-knock. It's easier -- and more -- effective to take a more discreet and polite approach, he says. Whereas the U.S. Army excels are roaring up in humvees, soldiers piling out and putting on a show of force, Carter's Marines instead walk up to the house where they believe Ali Muhammad Saed, the mortar team leader, is living.

They're in luck. He's out front fiddling with his orange-and-white taxi. He doesn't seem surprised to see him and sits quietly while Carter orders all other military-age men in the immediate neighborhood to be rounded up and brought to Saed's house. Soon enough, three men and two boys are brought over and they all squat on the porch of the house. It's possibly the most peaceful and respectful raid in Iraq's history.

"The days of just running in the house are over," Carter says. "If you flash-bang every house, you're not making many friends."

Saed's capture is a lucky break, and maybe it will help. Because these days, Fox Company has been catching hell from insurgents who have been pushed out of the city of Fallujah and into the surrounding countryside since U.S. forces wrested the city from insurgent control last November. While direct engagements are rare -- the Marines always win and the insurgents know it -- IEDs and suicide car bombs are taking a toll on Fox Company. Since their deployment in July, the 2-2 has had 12 Marines killed. Fox company has nine guys out wounded and Carter's 3rd Platoon has had 6 purple hearts awarded -- out of a force of 37 guys. Only one of 3rd Platoon's awards came from being shot. The rest have come from IEDs and car bombs. So numerous are incoming mortar attacks on Camp Delta that body armor and helmets are required anytime a Marine goes outside a building.

"It's not more violent," says Lance Cpl. Thomas Cummings, 21, of Horicon, Wisc. "But what is violent is more intense."

This wasn't supposed to happen. As the political process moved forward, embassy officials said all year, the violence should decrease. There would be a coupling in increased Sunni participation and a decrease in violence. But most of the injuries that have befallen 3rd Platoon, says Lt. Carter, have occurred since the Oct. 15 referendum.

Just two hours later, the nearby boom of an IED followed by the rattling of gunfire were a late coda his remarks. An ambush, somewhere. Someone else was catching it today.

(Note: This is the dispatch I planned to file from my last embed in Ramadi back in May. For a variety of reasons it never made it into TIME, but I thought you guys might like to see it. This was a typical day on a week-long embed at the end of May.)

RAMADI -- Signs warning “Complacency kills” dot the bases of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment in Ramadi.

The Marines stationed in this provincial capital in the treacherous Sunni triangle are bored. Bored of patrols, tired of manning outposts and frustrated by an enemy they can't meet face-to-face. The signs attest to the tedium of their days.

Unlike the few soldiers and Marines taking the fight to insurgents in towns such as al-Qa'im on the Syrian border, most of the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, including the guys of the 1-5, are not likely to “get some,” as the young warriors like to say. There are few firefights in Ramadi, a city of about 375,000 people, but lots of roadside bombs. Marines are hunkered down in their bases. When they get out, they patrol the streets, search cars and houses and act more like police than a military force.

“We're not on the offensive anymore,” said Lt. Brian Huysman, commander of Alpha Company, from his post at the Anbar Province Government Center, which his men guard. “We're not here to stop the insurgency, but to help the Iraqi government grow.”

His men guard the building so the Anbar government, such as it is, can function. The day after the provincial council elected a new governor, he was promptly kidnapped. Now the deputy governor has taken over the duties of governor. Marines also help set up the new police force, which is non-existent at the moment. The screening process for the new applicants is set to start May 22. “It's a day-in, day-out kind of thing,” Huysman said thoughtfully as he watched Iraqis wave metal detecting wands over Anbar Governorate employees coming into the triple-walled compound. “There's no corner to turn. It's just a slow, slow process.”

By early afternoon, the sun has hit peak intensity, and the men of 1st platoon, Charlie Company are sweating heavily in their body armor. They're on a patrol to investigate anti-American graffiti on three “known bad guy” mosques near the canal. Three Shi'ites from Najaf, members of the 18th Brigade of the new Iraqi Army—the Desert Lions— are with them because mosques are sensitive sites. Marines aren't to enter unless the Iraqi troops determine there's reason to search. There is almost no traffic or people on the streets, making the hairs on the back of Marines' necks bristle.

They search a palatial house and find a Kalashnikov magazine with a single armor-piercing round in it, in the lead position. The man who says he lives there isn't arrested, nor is his ammo confiscated, but he's put on a watch list. In another house, next to one of the suspect mosques, Capt. John Maloney, commander of Charlie Company, talks to the owner, an old man in a white dishdasha. He offers the Marines water, but the captain defers to the Iraqi troops with him, and asks him to support them and give him information about insurgents.

The old man replies that if they are Shi'ite, they have no business in Ramadi. He fears the insurgents and their homemade bombs, but he also fears the Shi'ite government in Baghdad and its new army. His fear reveals the fault lines of the new Iraq and the challenge the Marines face in their mission here.

It's frustrating. No one knows how long it will really take to build a credible government that all Iraqis believe in. The lack of enemy contact -- and missions that seem designed to avoid contact with insurgents -- frustrates the leathernecks. Marines are trained to fight, acknowledges battalion commander Lt. Col. Eric Smith, and any Marine will say he'd rather be in a gunfight than patrolling a city. However, “There will be no knockout punch here,” Smith said. “It is a daily grind.”

But while the duties are tedious, they're still dangerous.

“Try watching your buddy get blown up by an IED set by chickenshits who won't come out and fight,” growled a lance corporal in 1st platoon of 1-5's Charlie Company.

Five Marines have died since the 1-5 arrived in early March.

And the duties are vital. Iraqi security forces are not ready to take over, fears of civil war loom and insurgents can still move relatively freely. But these boring day-to-day tasks of the Marines in Ramadi are the new American strategy in Iraq: Avoid casualties, hold down the violence and hope the Iraqi security forces can take the fight to the insurgency.

Like much of Anbar province, Ramadi is a dirty, dun-colored place, made up of squat two- and three-story buildings. It tumbles out in a triangle from the intersection of the Euphrates River and the Habbaniyah canal, which feeds into Lake Habbaniyah to the south. And like most Iraqi cities, the dividing line is carelessly maintained between the city and the countryside. Ramadi just kind of runs out of steam to the south and shrugs into farmland as it gets closer to the lake.

Roads from Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia converge here, before merging into the major highway leading to Baghdad. Before the war, these roads made Ramadi a smugglers' haven, one barely under the control of Saddam Hussein. Today, insurgents and foreign fighters make use of the same smugglers' trails and while it's not the insurgent stronghold Fallujah was, the deeply conservative culture, a population that's 90 percent Sunni and a local leadership made up of tribal sheikhs and imams gives the Marines' enemies plenty of purchase in Anbar's capital.

The 1-5 in turn occupies three bases on the strategic tip of the city where the river and canal split: Camp Ramadi, Hurricane Point and Snake Pit. They have responsibility for the western half of the city while the Army's 1st Battalion of the 503rd Infantry Regiment has the eastern half. With no police force to speak of -- it fell apart earlier this year in the face of persistent insurgent attacks -- the Marines are the main security presence in the city.

That doesn't mean they're happy about it. “I cannot contain my excitement of going on this patrol,” Lance Corporal James Bellasario, 19, of White Hall, Mont., said sarcastically before 2nd platoon of Charlie Company began a sweep for weapons caches on the banks of the canal.

He worries that the lack of obvious successes in Iraq will mean the conflict slips the American public's mind. “If that happens,” he said, taking a long drag on a cigarette he is too young to buy in some states, “what the hell are over here for? It will be just like Vietnam.”

Maj. Benjamin Busch, with a civil affairs unit attached to the 1-5, sympathizes. “It's always nice to have a specific place that's a focus of your effort,” he said. Ramadi doesn't offer that, as there are no strategic targets other than the goodwill of the citizens, which is vital to the Marines' efforts here. “When it comes to the actual engagements, the Marines are winning. But the insurgents have incredible power to shut the city down.”

That power is fear, and the people of Ramadi feel it. When insurgents plan an attack, the people know it. Sometimes they tip off the Marines, sometimes they don't. Members of 2nd platoon grumble about this.

Such patrols are designed not only to find weapons caches, said Smith, but also to squeeze the insurgents from operating in areas of town and undermine their ability to terrorize. The theory is that the mere presence of Marines rather than heavy offensive actions will prove to Ramadi citizens the insurgents can't provoke or drive away the Americans because for the insurgents, just attacking the Marines is a victory. Attacks show the Americans aren't in control and undermine citizens' sense of safety.

“In a sense, not having contact is good, because if I'm able to keep the level of violence down until the government can take over, that's a successful day,” Smith said. “That gets me to the strategic aim of stability.”

Now, as another day ends without incident or encounter with the enemy, Maloney likens the current battle for Iraq as a chess match. “The trick here, like chess, is to set up the environment,” he said.

His men moved into position as he spoke: some on lookout on roofs, others down the road looking for men planting IEDs. Still others were stopping cars in snap vehicle checks in an attempt to surprise insurgents. He was continuing to apply pressure, but nothing to a breaking point. The goal was to get insurgents to show themselves while keeping his pieces in play.

“Every time they've come out, they've lost a pawn,” he said. “And they've lost a few knights, too.”

Ramadi's dust hung in the air, backlit by the setting sun. The muezzin's call to prayer drifted over the city. The Marines headed back to Snake Pit, knowing that when they moved out of the area, the insurgents would come back out to plant more IEDs. As Huysman of Alpha Company said earlier: “They're trying to see where we're not watching, where they can get close.”

Technorati Tags: Current Affairs, Iraq, Journalism, Middle East, News and Politics

A duststorm known as ajaj has settled over Baghdad.
The hazy building in the background is about 30 meters away.
©2005 Christopher Allbritton

BAGHDAD—We woke today to the muted sounds of thumps and booms. One big one, followed by a smaller one. Then mortars flew over our home. It was another attack on the Green Zone, and it killed two people.

The first explosion was a car bomb that hit the fortified complex's entrance that civilians, journalists and even National Assembly members often use to get inside. Many a time I've gone through the maze of blast walls, tank traps, concertina wire, HESCO barricades and ID checkpoints thinking that each time was a point of vulnerability. Cars from Jumhuriya Bridge and from the direction of Haifa Street approach the small intersection, often driving right up to the foot of the blast walls.A small contingent of Iraqi and U.S. troops, who sit atop an M1-A1 Abrams battle tank, man the entrance.

The second boom was a suicide bomber who rushed into the crowd that gathered following the first explosion and blew himself up. There are reports that a third bomber was possibly wounded and apprehended before he could deliver his deadly payload.

BAGHDAD—The Americans have killed two Iraqi journalists inside of a week. One was killed Friday and I just heard news of the other. I know a lot about the first death, but at the request of his family, I can't publish much because his widow fears retribution for her husband having worked for a Western news organization. But he was killed with a single shot to the head by Americans in a passing convoy.

[UPDATE 30/6/05 11:33 +0400 GMT: The journalist I mention above is Yasser Salihee, who worked for Knight Ridder. The full story is available here. As Tom writes in the copy, "Knight Ridder didn't previously report on Salihee's death because his family was worried about reprisal from insurgents, who often target Iraqis working for Western organizations. The family's wish to have Salihee's story told now outweighs those concerns."]

The second I don't know much about, as I just heard about it. Details haven't started coming in yet.

[UPDATE 29/6/05 10:38 +0400 GMT: Sorry for the harshness of my above words. I wasn't trying to say that the first Iraqi journalist was killed by Americans for being a journalist. There is no evidence that he was killed for anything but being near a convoy and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, a single shot in the head does suggest he was definitely targeted and not the victim of a lucky shot.]

I think the Americans have gotten a lot more trigger-happy and twitchy after the campaign of car bombs and other violence that has gripped Iraq for the last, what? Five weeks? Six? I've lost track. I can't tell anymore what headlines from the Associated Press listing the number of dead are new bombings or just updated casualty figures from earlier in the day.

“We have a choice now,” said A., my gruff, scotch-drinking office manager, confidant and mentor in all things Iraqi. “We can be killed by Zarqawi or the Americans.”

Since returning, it feels like I'm listening to the same record I've been listening to for a year, only with the volume turned up. Donald Rumsfeld, the American Secretary of Defense, says U.S. is winning the war and that the media are focusing too much on bad news. I know this because the press releases from the American Forces Information Network tell me so:

Progress in Iraq Takes Back Seat to Violence in Media, Rumsfeld Says
By Petty Officer 3rd Class John R. Guardiano, USN
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2005 – The “solid progress” being made in Iraq seldom gets the same level of media attention as terrorist killings and beheadings there, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today.

Moreover, the Iraqi people, he argued, are winning against the insurgency and, with the help of American and coalition forces, will prevail.

“The fact of the matter is that the progress has been solid,” Rumsfeld told George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.”

“It's amazing, it's historic, what's taken place,” he said. “Twenty-five million Iraqi people have been liberated, and they have now have a sovereign government. And they've had a successful election, and the hospitals and the schools are open, and they're making good progress on developing a constitution. And they're going to have a final election in December of this year.”

Yet, none of these facts is well known to the American public, the secretary said. “They're not as newsworthy, apparently, because (they) don't get reported as much,” Rumsfeld said. “What gets reported is that 10 Iraqis are killed (by) a suicide bomber, or an American soldier is killed.”

The secretary said this is not the media's fault; it's just the nature of wartime reporting.

“War is a tough, difficult, dirty business,” he explained. “And when it's reported, it leaves people with the impression—correctly—that it's a terrible thing. It's everybody's last choice, nobody's first choice.”

Rumsfeld said this has been true throughout American history. “We know that this has been true in the Revolutionary War. We know it was true in the Civil War. We know it was true in World War II (sic) and World War II,” he said. “If all people know is what they see on television or read in the press—the negatives,” he explained, then they don't see the progress that is being made.

Army Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, and Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., commander of Multinational Force Iraq, are the people with the most direct knowledge of what's transpiring in Iraq, and they “feel very good about the progress that's being made,” Rumsfeld said.

Casey told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that only “one-tenth of 1 percent” of Iraqis are involved in the insurgency.

“For those of us who have spent many months in the field,” Abizaid told the committee, “we see good progress in both Iraq and Afghanistan. We sense good progress against the extremism that once seemed so pervasive in the region. ... Progress in counterinsurgency and counter-terrorist work is not easily recognized. Setbacks, casualties and difficult problems undoubtedly remain ahead. ... We will need patience and strength to achieve success.”

But while negative media coverage of war has been the historic norm, television and the modern media may have exacerbated the problem in recent history.

On the NBC News program “Meet the Press” with Tim Russert, the secretary noted that according to historian David McCullough, author of a new book titled “1776,” if the American Revolutionary War had had the same type of media coverage as the Iraq war, then “there wouldn't have been a successful revolution.”

As far as Iraq is concerned, “the progress is impressive,” Rumsfeld said. “I think they're going to choose the path of lightness. The sweep of human history is for freedom. Look at what's happened in Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan and the Ukraine.”

The secretary said the American people can be optimistic about a good outcome in Iraq, but the optimism must be tempered with an understanding of reality. “We have to recognize that it's a tough, tough, tough world, and there are going to be bumps in the road between now and then,” he said.

“Bumps in the road”? Just earlier today, presumably before the Iraqi journalist was killed, an Iraqi member of parliament was killed in a car bomb attack. I can't even begin to tell you how many Iraqis have been killed in the weeks I was away. And how many more Iraqis, journalists or otherwise, will die because the Americans can't tell who's friend or foe? Those aren't “bumps in the road.” Those are signs that you went off the road without a map a long time ago.

Where do you even begin combatting the head-in-the-sandism, brazen propaganda and revisionism of the above release. (By the way, it's about the fourth or fifth one I've received in the last few days touting the same theme, apparently in concert with President Bush's push to let Americans know that everything is going hunky-dory.)

News flash: Iraq is a disaster. I've been back one day, and the airport road was the worst I've ever seen it. We had to go around a fire-fight between mujahideen and Americans while Iraqi forces sat in the shade of date palms on the side of the road, their rifles resting across their laps. My driver pointed to a group of men in a white pickup next to me. “They are mujahideen,” he said. “They are watching the Americans.” Indeed, they were, and so intently that they paid no attention to me in the car next to them. We detoured around two possible car bombs that had been cordoned off while Iraqis cautiously approached.

Rumsfeld's assessment of “good progress” on the constitution is not accurate, as the committee to draw it up still hasn't completely agreed on how the Sunnis will take part.

When I was in Ramadi, I found the morale to be lower than expected. It wasn't rock-bottom among the Marines of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, but it wasn't great. Most of the ones I talked to weren't confident they were doing anything worthwhile, and were instead focused on getting home alive. If a few Iraqis had to die to make that happen, well, war is hell.

I'm not sure who's winning this war, the Americans or the insurgents. But I know who is losing it: the Iraqi people. Those bumps in the road are their graves.

FORT AL-RAMADI, Ramadi, Iraq—Made it here last night after a couple of chopper rides from the Green Zone. Chinooks and CH-46 Sea Knights (the Army and Marine heavy-lifting chopper, respectively) are frickin' loud. But all went well. We should be going out later today, although I'm not yet sure where we're destined.

More later as time permits.

BAGHDAD — Iraq is a funny place sometimes, not the least because of its people. For instance, they can be warm, funny and generous. And yet, get a group of, say, 10 men together, and they soon fall to arguing about the littlest thing. Hell, I've seen them argue even when they agree with one another. And I've seen a small group of men turn into a lynch mob like a light switch had been flipped.

But this is not a “look at the wacky Iraqis” post. This is a post about the hair-trigger temper of a populace under the twin pressures of occupation and random horrible violence. This post is about a people who, prior to the 1991 Gulf war and the subsequent sanctions, were warmer, more hospitable and more generous than they are now. And while Iraqis have always been suspicious of outsiders, they are now positively paranoid. Dangerously so.

The latest outrage to hit Iraq is the revised plan for the weekend. When I left on Feb. 2, Iraqis observed their own weekend: half a day off on Thursday and a full day off on Friday, the Islamic holy day. This was a little inconvenient for us westerners working here, since that meant we started work on a Saturday while our editors were taking these two days off. The only real overlap in the Iraqi workweek and the rest of the world's was Monday through Wednesday and that dratted half-day on Thursday.

Well, three weeks ago, the Iraqi interim government decreed that the weekend would henceforth be two full days: Friday and Saturday. On the surface, this makes a lot of sense. It means government workers won't be making the hazardous trip to and from work quite as often, and it will allow Iraqis to interact with the rest of the world four out of five business days. But college students, many of them belonging to organizations professing loyalty to populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, are outraged. They're demonstrating on university campuses all over Iraq denouncing Saturday-as-holiday as a “Zionist conspiracy.” Why? Because Saturday is the Jewish sabbath, and Jews are, well, the bad guys in Iraq. One of my staff here at the TIME house is furious with the idea of taking Saturday off, saying, “The Jews occupy Iraq and they want to take their day off.” (He also believes the Iranians occupy Iraq because of the Sistani coalition's victory in the Jan. 30 elections. He's Sunni.)

At any rate, it now appears the Allawi government will back down and make Thursday and Friday the “new” weekend, giving the Iraqis only three workdays in common with most of the rest of the world. But hell, that's OK. I'm a freelancer. I'm all in favor of setting your own schedule. [UPDATE: I couldn't find any independent confirmation on this, so I'm cutting it.]

On the surface this is silly. And some could point to this as just another example of the paranoid mindset of many young Iraqis. But there's a reason for this mindset: For years, Iraqis have had to eat and breath conspiracy theories because so often there were conspiracies to contend with. (You think totalitarian states operate with transparency?) And the damage of the United Nations sanctions over 12 years hardened Iraqis' attitudes toward the world, causing them to think, not unreasonably, that the world was out to get them. A people who already suspicious of outsiders because of their Bedouin/tribal heritage came to hate foreigners because the cause of many of their problems were foreigners meddling in Iraq. The list is long: The Americans who betrayed them in 1991, the Security Council that abandoned them in the years that followed, The Americans in 2003 to the present, and now the widespread belief that Syria and Jordan (among the Shi'ites) and Iran (among the Sunnis) are further meddling behind the scenes to destroy Iraq by supporting either “terrorists” or Persian cats paws.

It's not a coincidence that Iraq currently has tense relations with all three countries in some form or another. The Kurds' prickly relations with Iran and Turkey aren't helping matters either. Until the Iraqis are able to stand up to their neighbors, who really are meddling in many disreputable ways, they'll never be able to dispel their distrust of the outside world, workweeks will remain uncoordinated and the Jews will remain perpetrators of dark plots to undermine Iraq and Islam. Until the people's confidence returns, regardless of who runs this place, you're going to have a country that's not ready to play well with others.