BAGHDAD — The chunky man in the beige velour tracksuit emphasized that he wanted to help the U.S. troops, who politely sipped the Pepsis he had produced after they arrived unannounced Saturday night at his modest home in the northeast neighborhood of Shaab.
Without the Americans, the man said, kidnappers and killers who have terrorized Sunni Muslims in the Shiite-dominated area would resurface. Drawing his index finger across his neck in a slicing motion, he indicated what happened to Sunnis when U.S. forces were not around.
But when U.S. Army Spc. Rany Grizz pressed the man for details, he encountered one of the most stubborn enemies facing American and Iraqi forces attempting to carry out the latest security crackdown in violence-racked Baghdad: Iraqis' paralyzing fear and distrust of virtually everyone, including the Iraqi army, their next-door neighbors and their own relatives.
"The way we can make this neighborhood safer is if we go and get them tonight," Grizz, 22, of Miami said to the man, a sense of urgency in his voice as he tried to coax more information. But the source had nothing more to say, at least for the moment.
"Everybody has a weapon," he said, explaining his fear of saying too much. "I don't even trust my brother-in-law."
As for the idea of Iraqi troops loyal to the Shiite-dominated national government taking over for U.S. forces, the man held up his hands as if fending off a bad smell.
"We're afraid if they go," he said of the Americans, "all the trouble will come back."
It was a message heard several times over Saturday as the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team from the Army's 2nd Infantry Division, based in Ft. Lewis, Wash., went house to house along a block of small concrete homes in Shaab.
The poor and working-class neighborhood is of high interest to troops enforcing the security plan because it is adjacent to Sadr City, a hotbed of the Shiite Muslim militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr, and Adhamiya, a Sunni stronghold.
Its location makes it a likely spot for militant activity from both sides, and for the last week U.S. soldiers in Strykers, hulking 22-ton armored vehicles, have combed it day and night.
By day, they conduct clearing operations, searching homes and detaining people based in part on tips from neighborhood residents. By night, they follow up by gathering a new round of "atmospherics," military-speak for chatting with locals to get the lay of the land and develop sources of information.
