WP: Troops at Baghdad Outposts Seek Safety in Fortifications

This sucks beyond belief. Why are we there again, and who are we helping? This sounds like defensive actions to me, to make soldiers safer while they wait the wh out. I don't blame them at all, but what is this accomplishing?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701935_pf.html

Troops at Baghdad Outposts Seek Safety in Fortifications

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 8, 2007; A01

BAGHDAD -- Nearly three months after the U.S. military launched a new strategy to safeguard Baghdad's population by pushing American and Iraqi forces deeper into the city's neighborhoods, defending their small outposts is increasingly requiring heavy bulwarks reminiscent of the fortresslike bases that the U.S. troops left behind.

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"There's two threats to the combat outpost . . . a huge truck bomb, and indirect fire," Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who handles day-to-day military operations in Iraq, said in an interview at his Baghdad headquarters last week. In response, he said, U.S. troops are building more walls to shield themselves from mortars and rockets, while trying to track down insurgents firing on them.

To counter truck bombs, military engineers are gauging the structural soundness of the outposts and making sure they are well removed from traffic, Odierno said. Antitank weapons such as the bazooka-like AT-4 are also now required for soldiers on guard.

"They are now armoring these trucks, so whereas before we could shoot them and kill them, now we have to use some antitank capability against them and we're going to do that," Odierno said.

For U.S. troops living at the small camps, the constant need for vigilance -- coupled with hardship conditions and the prospect of 15-month tours -- has in some cases taken a toll on morale. While some soldiers see advantages in living alongside Iraqi security forces inside the neighborhoods they patrol, others voice resentment over a mission they believe is ill-defined.

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