The Last Day of the Iraq War

He pulled troops out of small outposts and returned them to the big bases with mammoth dining halls and basketball courts, despite their isolation from the people. After all, Caraccilo figured, it's Iraqi troops who will inherit the fight. Now the Americans are teaching their jobs to the Iraqis, even highly specialized skills like operating the sophisticated IED-hunting vehicles that are now being turned over to the Iraqi military. The handover still hinges on decisions about what's good enough. Asked how he'd apply the term to an Iraqi soldier, Caraccilo says: "If he's getting shot at and shoots back without running away. That's good. If someone can bring him extra bullets, that's better."

Americans on the ground worry that the drawdown could be a step backward. Before, the idea was for U.S. troops to live among Iraqis to secure them and under- stand what was going on. The advisers on Baker's team, moving back to a big base near Mahmudiyah at the end of their tour in November, were already nostalgic for the days when they lived down the hall from Iraqi troops, sharing meals and chores and learning who could be trusted. In Mahmudiyah, America's hopes now center on Maj. Gen. Ali Jassem al-Frejee, commander of the new 17th Division of the Iraqi Army. All of 39 years old, he's battled against Sunni and Shiite extremists and has prudently seeded officers from both sects throughout his command. Like many now in charge, he was an officer and nominal Baathist in Saddam's military. When al-Frejee's younger brother was kidnapped in Baghdad, the general's forces rushed out of their sector to rescue him the same night. The brother, also a soldier, had been assigned to protect the general's home. "Now I have to get someone to protect my brother," al-Frejee says with a sardonic grin. But assassination is a constant risk for him. Some U.S. officers say other leadership could pick up the slack if he's harmed. "That's debatable," says Capt. Tom Goettke, a company commander who saw plenty of action with local Iraqi forces before rotating home in November.

American commanders are learning to choose their battles when dealing with their Iraqi allies. When an Iraqi lieutenant in Mahmudiyah was caught tipping off radical Shiites before they could be arrested, his commanding officer merely transferred him to a Sunni area instead of kicking him out of the service. But that was good enough; it got the unreliable lieutenant out of the way. (The Iraqi commander refuses to discuss the matter with colleagues in the U.S. military.) And it wasn't worth making waves when an Iraqi soldier beat an insurgent detainee who had called it "an honor" to kill Iraqi troops. Col. Akram al-Hamidawi gave the soldier a warning but told me—right in front of his American adviser—"If I were in his position I would have done more than that."

The Americans have enough to worry about already. Their ranks are stretched far too thin to keep a close eye on every trained-up Iraqi unit. "Because we don't have enough advisers, we are in effect saying all these battalions are good enough, whether they really are or aren't," says Baker, who led an 11-man military transition team (MiTT). Mahmudiyah demonstrates the truth of what one Iraqi analyst told me: Americans have spent the last couple of years trying to unwind mistakes they made earlier. They dismantled the Army—only to find they had to revive it, using many of Saddam's old officers. They scrapped the network through which Saddam bought the tribes' loyalty, but now it's been effectively rebuilt with Sunni tribal militias who joined U.S. forces, for a fee, to fight Al Qaeda. The coalition is fighting to remove Al Qaeda from a land where it did not operate before 2003 and has built blast walls to end a sectarian blood feud between sects that used to live in relative harmony.

Just as the rest of Iraq could slip back into deadly chaos, the threat continues to hang over Mahmudiyah. Shiite militia chiefs who were driven out early last year are thought to be seeking a new foothold. One, a locally born, Iranian-backed cell leader, cherishes Mahmudiyah as his "diamond." There are still occasional, nearly harmless, roadside bomb blasts on some routes where tribal security contractors are not allowed to patrol. Some U.S. troops suspect their tribal allies of setting the IEDs just to show there's no peace without them. The market remains open after dark, but not late at night, as the local government has urged. Shopkeepers aren't willing to push their luck. They gripe about power outages and the local government's failure to organize generator service even after U.S. forces have provided the machines. A few days ago U.S. soldiers and State Department people visited the market to negotiate with squatters running unlicensed shops. A municipal government worthy of the name could have handled the problem without help from the Americans.

The mixed Sunni-Shiite town is preparing for provincial elections, scheduled for Jan. 31. With luck, the democratic process might contain the seeds of a better Iraq someday. Rival Shiite parties, which once ruled the center of town and used to kidnap and kill each other's members, now merely stake out their turf the traditional way, with satiny red, black and green banners and posters of their martyrs. Most people in the surrounding countryside are tribal Sunnis. They're venturing into town again, unlike in recent years, but they've been suspicious and hesitant to mix in Shiite city politics. Now some are forming parties to take part in the contest; party posters are plastered along the rundown storefronts of the market, visible between the tangled wires clinging to local generators. There's doubt among the Americans that Iraqi forces will be able to secure polling stations all across the country without more assistance from U.S. troops. If Iraqis don't believe their votes have been counted honestly, the fragile peace could fall apart.

Whether or not the contest is clean, trouble is all but inevitable. "The local political pattern is, fight and negotiate and fight and negotiate," says the noted Iraq historian Phebe Marr. "There's going to be a continuing series of tests and probes." The country's traditions have developed over centuries on the frontier between empires, some indifferent and others ruthless, Marr theorizes, and people came to distrust central power, relying instead on ethnic and tribal networks. America has little choice now but to accept the risks. "It's time to let go," says Caraccilo. He's impatient with U.S. commanders who are too afraid of failure to let Iraqis run things their own way. "The Coalition has a very difficult time having the restraint and discipline to refrain from intervening," he says. Still, Adel Jumaili, a retired Iraqi Army officer in Mahmudiyah, warns that many of his countrymen aren't likely to be content with "good enough" after so many years of sacrifice and suffering. "Iraq has lost many of its sons and much of its potential, and at the end the only thing we get is 'less violence'?" he complains. "Was that the ultimate hope?" He worries that frustration and disappointment will bring more chaos when the Americans pull out. In the end, it's the Iraqis who decide what's good enough.

With Salih Mehdi, Ahmed Obeidi and Saad Al-Izzi in Mahmudiyah and Baghdad

© 2009