Americans more trusted than Iraqi army

Michael Gordon:

...

“The large Sunni areas distrust the I.A. because of the number of Shias that are in the army,” said Sgt. First Class Eric Beck, using the abbreviation for the Iraqi Army. He added that there was a risk that the Iraqi troops would be too harsh on residents if they were not supervised by the Americans.

“We are hanging out and walking them through these areas,” Sergeant Beck said. “Some of these I.A. guys believe what they hear. So when they come in here and see the people that live here, it might change their mind about the area that they are going into. We are bonding the population of this area with the I.A. and giving them a chance to actually see them and gain trust in them.”

The efforts to bridge the divide were somewhat tentative. As Thursday morning began, the soldiers raced across a rocky field under a cloud of smoke that the Americans had generated to protect themselves against the threat of snipers (“precision shooters,” in the vernacular).

After reaching the homes on the other side, the soldiers banged on a door. The startled residents let the soldiers in. Captain Salge and his interpreter pulled the owner, a 50-year-old Iraqi who had left Baghdad to escape the sectarian fighting, into a small room so they could question him alone, apart from the Iraqi soldiers who milled through the rest of the house.

The questioning soon turned into a debate on the Americans’ conduct in Iraq. The Iraqi claimed that American troops had shot a man the previous evening for no good reason. Captain Salge insisted that the man had been seen pouring gasoline on the road. Insurgents commonly set the road on fire so they can soften up the pavement and bury bombs.

As the session came to an end, it was clear that the Iraqi had no sympathy for fighters from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who he said had intimidated the city’s residents and sought to force them to adhere to a strict Islamic code. Nor did he have a high opinion of Iraq’s security forces, whom he viewed as allies of renegade Shiite militias.

“Most of the people living in this neighborhood trust the Americans more than the Iraqi Army,” he said.

While the Americans have gotten the point on building confidence among the people the IA still has a ways to go. It is critical though. What does John Murtha think when he sees statements like the one about who the Iraqis trust? It is so inconsistent with what he says about the country and it attitude toward the Americans that it must be counterintuitive to him.