Hopeful period
Just a year ago, this region appeared to be nearly pacified. Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi was killed just outside Baqubah, and U.S. commanders decided the province was ripe for the transfer of primary responsibility for security to Iraqi forces.
Instead, Al Qaeda quickly regained a sanctuary in the province and imposed its extremist interpretation of Islam. U.S. and Iraqi security forces scarcely venture into west Baqubah, where smoking is prohibited, as is the sale of women's clothing by men. Even placing a cucumber next to a tomato in the markets is forbidden because they have been gendered male and female.
Violators have been arrested and confined to outdoor mats in makeshift prison camps. U.S. soldiers found and freed 41 people last month in such a camp, including a 13-year-old boy who said he had been caught smoking.
As Al Qaeda assumes some of the trappings of government, the elected local government faded from view for long stretches of the last year.
The provincial governing council did not hold a single meeting for six months ending in April and spent only 2% of its $165-million budget for basic services and reconstruction projects last year.
George said things were slowly improving after a sustained effort to retake Baqubah since his brigade's arrival in October. A $228-million budget was recently sent by the provincial governing council to Baghdad for approval, and government salaries are once again flowing.
The commander credits the tenuous gains to the block-by-block effort to take back the city, beginning with a police station in the southeast section where Al Qaeda operatives had lowered the Iraqi flag and raised a black one.
"We said OK, fine, we're taking it back," George said.
But even with the recovery of the station, he acknowledged that security in the surrounding area remains poor, and the effort to add more U.S. military outposts has not reached the western half of the city.
"Obviously, we had hoped to be farther along by now. Unfortunately, the enemy has a vote," George said.
A significant hindrance to the effort has been the Iraqi security forces, he said. The Iraqi army and police proved to be ineffective and abusive, targeting Sunni Arabs for detention and holding them for 10 months or more without any access to the courts, George said.
