Winning Hearts and Minds

by Dahr Jamail | Posted April 14, 2004 at 11:55 AM Baghdad time
Last night an older Iraqi man in his shop on Karrada Street told me, "The situation here is worse than I can ever remember. How the Americans handle things in Falluja and down South over the next few days will determine everything. I still can't understand their policy here. Where is the freedom they promised?"

Adhamiya, Iraq -- This morning while I was on the roof of the apartment talking with a radio station in Connecticut, a huge explosion went off in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) area just across the Tigris from me. Not long after that, another went off at the Sheraton Hotel, then another in the other direction caused by a rocket flying just overhead. All of this was followed by sporadic gunfire to the north. Life in liberated Baghdad today.

It feels quite surreal to hear the news this morning that General Sanchez has announced the military is preparing to kill or arrest Muqtada Al-Sadr in the holy city of Najaf, as troops are amassing around the city.

Shortly after receiving this news my good friend Abu Talat called me and said that on Sunday at 7am he went to look outside his home in Adhamiya, a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad. He opened the gate to find an American soldier kneeling with a gun aimed down the road. There was also another soldier laying down in his yard aiming his gun in the same direction, and several tanks were coming up from behind them. The fighting was raging between US troops and the resistance.

Much more
http://blog.newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches/archives/000182.html#more