Surging for the Shi'a

Things are going really well for the "surge." Our troops join up with (a very few of) the Iraqi police to sweep the neighborhood searching for illegal weapons. The Iraqi police go first warning the Shi'as in the neighborhood that they should hide their weapons because the Americans are coming. The Americans follow dutifully along behind and find nothing .. at least they find nothing in the Shi'a homes.

BAGHDAD, Feb. 19 — It looked like a scene out of a counterinsurgency training video. Dressed in crisp uniforms with a computer-generated camouflage of blue, gray and brown, Iraqi national police officers joined United States troops on searches late last week through relatively calm districts of Shaab and Ur in northeast Baghdad in the first large operation of the Baghdad security plan.

But appearances in Iraq can often be deceiving. At least two of the national police officers who turned out for the operation were moving ahead of the American troops not to lead the security drive but to warn the residents to hide their weapons and other incriminating evidence.

Some policemen on the sweep advertised their Shiite sympathies. Infiltration by militias has always been a major problem for the Iraqi security forces, and particularly the police, viewed by many Sunnis in the capital as de facto Shiite militia fighters.

One can only speculate what this article would have looked like if Judy Miller had written it, but I suspect it might have begun and ended with the first paragraph.