"We're helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us", the May 27 New York Times reported being told by US Army Staff Sergeant David Safstrom, who was commenting on the US-recruited and trained Iraqi Army.
The NYT reported that Safstrom, now on his third deployment in Iraq, "is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when [US] soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber's body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army … His views are echoed by most of his fellow soldiers in Delta Company, renowned for its aggressiveness."
The NYT reported as typical of the views of the soldiers it interviewed, those expressed by Delta Company Sergeant Kevin O'Flarity, a squad leader. "Half of the Iraqi security forces are insurgents … Most of us don't know what we're fighting for anymore", he said. "We're serving our country and friends, but the only reason we go out every day is for each other. I don't want any more of my guys to get hurt or die. If it was something I felt righteous about, maybe. But for this country and this conflict, no, it's not worth it."
Delta Company Sergeant First Class David Moore, who describes himself as a "conservative Texas Republican" and who supports a US withdrawal from Iraq, told the NYT: "In 2003, 2004, 100% of the soldiers wanted to be here, to fight this war. Now 95% of my platoon agrees with me."
The turning point in their attitude toward the war, the NYT reported, came on April 29, when the unit set out from its base to make a raid on a mosque in the predominantly Shiite neighbourhood of Kadhimiyah, in northern Baghdad.
"The soldiers saw men in the distance erecting burning barricades, and the streets emptied out quickly", the NYT reported. "Then a militia, believed to be the Mahdi Army, which is affiliated with the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, began firing at them from rooftops and windows". A squad led by O'Flarity "maneuvered their Humvees through alleyways and side streets, firing back at an estimated 60 insurgents during a gun battle that raged for two and a half hours".
"A rocket-propelled grenade glanced off Sergeant O'Flarity's Humvee, failing to penetrate. When the battle was over, Delta Company learned that among the enemy dead were at least two Iraqi Army soldiers that American forces had helped train and arm."
Delta Company commander Captain Douglas Rogers told the NYT: "Before that fight, there were a few true believers [in the war]. After the 29th, I don't think you'll find a true believer in this unit … There's no question they'll fulfill their mission, but they're fighting now for pride in their unit, professionalism, loyalty to their fellow soldier and chain of command."
Delta Company was deployed to Iraq for the third time earlier this year as part of US President George Bush's "troop surge", announced on January 10. Initially announced as a plan to add an extra 21,500 US combat troops to the US occupation force of 52,500 combat and 85,000 support troops, by mid-March the surge plan had grown to 28,800 troops — as US commanders in Iraq asked for and received an extra 7300 support troops.
On May 30, the Pentagon announced that it had completed the "troop surge", boosting the number of US combat brigades in Iraq (each roughly 3500 troops) from 15 to 20. Overall, the Pentagon said there were 150,000 US troops in Iraq, but that number could still climb as more support troops are moved in.
The White House and the Pentagon present the troop build-up as necessary to carry out a "security crackdown" on alleged "sectarian violence" in Baghdad between "Shiite militias" and "Sunni insurgents". However, the "security crackdown" that began on February 14 has not reduced either the level at which Iraqi civilians are being killed nor the rate of US troop fatalities.
According to figures compiled by the Iraq Body Count — a British group that maintains a database of media-reported Iraqi civilian deaths attributable to military attacks and criminal violence since the 2003 US-led invasion — in January, the month before the start of the Baghdad "security crackdown", 1711 Iraqi civilians were killed. In April, the number dropped slightly to 1521, while in May, it was 1781.
Attacks on US troops — which most Iraqis approve of, according to surveys of Iraqi public opinion — have resulted in a sharp escalation of US troop fatalities since the beginning of April. While US troops in Iraq died at an average rate of 2.6 a day during the first three months of this year, the rate jumped to 3.46 per day in April.
In May, it jumped again — to an average of 4.1r per day. This was the highest US troop fatality rate since November 2004, when some 10,000 US troops waged a month-long assault on the rebel Iraqi city of Fallujah. Of the 127 US troops who died in Iraq last month, nearly half of them were killed in Baghdad, and one-fifth were killed in Diyala province, directly north of Baghdad.
On May 28, the Harvard University Nieman Foundation for Journalism's Nieman Watchdog website posted an open letter from private Donald Hudson Jr. He wrote: "I have been serving our country's military actively for the last three years. I am currently deployed to Baghdad on Forward Operating Base Loyalty, where I have been for the last four and a half months.
"I came here as part of the first wave of this so called 'troop surge', but so far it has effectively done nothing to quell insurgent violence … Why are we here when this country still to date does not want us here?"