BAGHDAD — Mohammed Azzawi, his brother and a friend faced a bedeviling choice as they neared their home in one of Baghdad's deadliest neighborhoods: They could take a road recently closed by U.S. troops where motorists jump the curb and drive on the sidewalk, or an open route haunted by abductions and killings.
It is the sort of dilemma Iraqis encounter every day as they navigate a city with increasing numbers of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, but still dominated by danger and uncertainty.
More than two months after the United States and Iraq launched a new plan to stanch the capital's violence, life for residents has become a game of choices dictated by concrete barriers, traffic-choking checkpoints and the latest market bombing.
U.S. and Iraqi officials cite trends they say indicate progress: fewer death squad killings, a rising number of suspected insurgents detained, more troops on the ground. But such data mean little to Iraqis whose lives have been upended by invasion, civil war and now the latest security clampdown. For them, the plan is only as good as the calm it can bring to their neighborhoods, streets, and families. That has been as varied as the violence itself, which on any given day might result in 100 deaths, or 10.
In interviews in Sunni, Shiite, and mixed areas where U.S. and Iraqi troops are now stationed, a minority of Iraqis said the security plan had made their lives better. Most said any optimism they had felt at the start had faded in the face of continued violence and additional headaches brought about by checkpoints and road closures.
Azzawi's driver complained that jumping the curbs would damage his blue Chevy Celebrity, so they took the alternate road toward their home in the city's Ghazaliya neighborhood.
They were stopped at a checkpoint manned by uniformed Interior Ministry commandos, whose ranks are suspected of being riddled with Shiite militiamen. The car's occupants, all Sunnis, were uneasy. Azzawi's neighbor had warned him to avoid this spot. Three of his relatives, the neighbor had told him, had been abducted there and killed a month earlier.
The commandos whispered among themselves. They ordered the driver to open the trunk.
"They had a look and then went aside and had more whispers. They made some phone calls on their mobiles," Azzawi said. "Then they came and asked for our IDs, but they did not look at them."
Instead, the men locked their eyes on the car, as if considering their next move.
