IRAQ:Nearly three months after the US military launched a new strategy to safeguard Baghdad's population by pushing American and Iraqi forces deeper into the city's neighbourhoods, defending small outposts is increasingly requiring heavy bulwarks reminiscent of the fortress-like bases that the US troops left behind.
To guard against bombs, mortar fire and other threats, US commanders are adding fortifications to the outposts, setting them further back from traffic and arming them with anti-tank weapons capable of stopping suicide bombers driving armoured vehicles. US troops maintain the advantage of living in the neighbourhoods they are asked to protect, but the need to safeguard themselves from attack means more walls between them and civilians.
At a moonlit outpost on the edge of Baghdad's Sadr City one night last week, First Sgt Donald Knapp balanced himself on a concrete barrier suspended by a crane and slowly guided a heavy slab into position. It was 3am, and Knapp and a few other soldiers were working through the night to fortify their camp.
Over four days, the soldiers erected hundreds of sections of wall and reinforced them with barbed wire and 300 truckloads of sand. They pushed out the walls of the camp, and blocked approaching roads with serpentine barriers.
Knapp's unit from the 82nd Airborne Division is redoubling security efforts as insurgents and militiamen step up attacks on their outpost, one of dozens of small patrol bases set up as part of the deployment of tens of thousands of additional US and Iraqi troops. The strategy has reduced sectarian killings but has also put US troops at greater risk, such as when a suicide bombing at an outpost east of Baghdad killed nine US soldiers and wounded 20 on April 23rd.
Army Gen David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, has acknowledged that US troops will face opposition as they move into neighbourhoods. "It's a fight. They're fighting to hold a grip on the population, and the Iraqis and coalition are working to break the grip," he says. Still, the outposts are vital to his counter-insurgency strategy. "If you want to protect the population, you've got to live with it," he says. "There's no commuting to the fight."
More than 60 "joint security stations", staffed by American and Iraqi forces, and US combat outposts are now operating in Baghdad.
"There's two threats to the combat outpost . . . a huge truck bomb and indirect fire," says Lieut Gen Raymond T Odierno, who handles day-to-day military operations in Iraq. In response to these, US troops are building more walls to shield themselves from mortars and rockets, while trying to track down insurgents firing on them.Anti-tank weapons are also now required for soldiers on guard.
"They are now armouring these trucks so, whereas before we could shoot them and kill them, now we have to use some anti-tank capability against them and we're going to do that," Odierno says.
For US troops living at the small camps, the constant need for vigilance - coupled with hardship 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 neighbourhoods they patrol, others voice resentment over a mission they believe is ill-defined.
At the outpost in Sadr City, a volatile, predominantly Shia district of east Baghdad with about two million residents, scores of Iraqi police officers and US soldiers live in cramped quarters in a two-storey building. They eat mostly packaged food, rarely shower, and in off-duty hours do little but sleep. US troops guard towers on the roof 24 hours a day and, uncertain of the loyalties of their Iraqi counterparts, also stand sentry at the American section inside.
Capt Frank Fisher (37), of Dryden, Michigan, says that by living in Sadr City he can respond much faster to incidents than if he stayed on a large outlying military base, as US forces did in the past. "We hear a boom somewhere in the city and within minutes or seconds I can get an indication of where that explosion happened.
"Every time I step out of the base, I'm in my own battle space. It pays big rewards when people see you in their neighbourhood every day," he argues.
But US troops also face a constant, nerve-racking battle against insurgents. Every day at different times, Knapp has to vacate US personnel and vehicles from different parts of the security station to avoid incoming 60mm and 80mm mortar rounds.
As Knapp put up barriers recently, five rocket-propelled grenades and several mortar shells were fired at Iraqi contractors. Two truck drivers were reportedly kidnapped at gunpoint and, as a result, "a very large percentage of the contractors quit" and had to be replaced, Capt Joshua Taylor says.
Morale was mixed among soldiers at the outposts - the closest thing to a "front line" in the military's Baghdad campaign. Some, particularly junior officers, said they accepted the risks to live closer to the Iraqi people.
Others, however, said they longed for a sense of purpose and voiced frustration at the prospect of harsh, dangerous 15-month tours for a mission they consider murky.
"What do you want us to accomplish over here? We aren't hearing any end state. We aren't hearing it from the president, from the defence secretary," Sgt First Class Michael Eaglin said in a room cluttered with bunk beds, rucksacks and weapons at the Sadr City outpost.
"We're working hard and the politicians are arguing. They don't have bullets flying over their heads. They aren't on the front lines, and their buddies aren't dying," he said.
"It's almost like the Vietnam War. We don't know where we're going," Specialist Adam Hamilton agreed.
"We're not complaining," Eaglin said. "We're tired of being lost. Have you ever been lost and at the same time getting shot at? It's miserable," he said.
"When you paint a car a pretty red . . . it makes you feel good inside. That's what we want with this war. I want to be here for a reason, not just a show of force."