United States soldiers from one unit talk about how they drove down one specific road with a bomb crater blocking one lane. Houses were blacked by previous fires as a result of the bombs and attacks. Shops were nothing more than a pile of bricks. A piece of public art is made from the remnants of a car bomb. This area is dubbed by the soldiers as ‘Lake Havasu.’ The name is derived from the Spring Break party spot in Arizona.
“When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street,” stated Sergeant Victor Alarcon. He added: “The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks.”
Alarcon explains that this was fourteen months ago when the soldiers from the 1st Battalion from the 18th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division came to the southwestern part of Baghdad. They explain that this was long ago before the Iraqi National Police had become their enemies. He adds that this was long before the National Police aligned itself with the Shiite militias where they both tried to exterminate a neighborhood occupied by middle-class Sunni Muslim families.
These soldiers will complete their tour of Iraq in the next month of November. According to the soldiers, the experience has left them discouraged by both hatred between rival sects and the will of the Iraqi government.
Alarcon was asked if the endeavor of the United States was worth the sacrifice. Twenty soldiers in the group have been killed. He answered: “I don’t think this place is worth another soldier’s life.”
From the soldiers’ testimonies, it speaks differently from that top United States military commanders are saying. The commanders say that the violence has gone through a steep drop; the soldiers say that statistics do not compare.
Before Saddam Hussein was removed from power, it was explained that Sadiyah was a bustling middle-class district along with being popular with Sunni officers in Hussein’s military. The area’s become very important because it represents a major fault line.
According to US soldiers, they estimate that the violence has become far more intense this year. Half of the families living in the district have fled to escape from the escalating violence. The abandoned houses were used by insurgents and militiamen to have meetings along with storing of weapons.
Alarcon’s battalion was focused to develop the Iraqi security forces into an organized, fair, and effective force. However, the soldiers felt that this was an unattainable goal.
According to the Interior Ministry, they had to work very hard to root out militiamen from the Iraqi National Police.
The US soldiers have said that it’s not uncommon to find at least a dozen corpses on the side of the street during daily patrols. The battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Glaze explains that his soldiers ended up playing the job of bouncers being caught between fighting customers.
According to Glaze: “I’m frustrated. After 14 months, I’ve got a lot of thoughts in my head. Do they fundamentally get giving up individual rights and power for greater good?” He adds: “I’m going to leave here being skeptical of everything.”
Captain Lee Showman states: “People are killed here everyday, and you don’t hear about it. People are kidnapped here every day, and you don’t hear about it.”
Staff Sergeant Richard McClary adds: “They just know back there what the higher-ups here tell them. But the higher-ups don’t go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe places, places with a little bit of gunfire,” and added with: “They don’t ever [expletive] see what we see on the ground.