Things Fall Apart

Army Capt. Jason Hamill
March 5, Baghdad

Yeah, s--t's been pretty crazy. Locals have been out of control because the Golden (Shia) Mosque was blown up. [ ... ] There is going to have to be a civil war. It has to happen. If it happens while we're here, so what. Our stance is we're not going to get involved. We'll pull back and overwatch. [ ... ] The Shia are upset, though, that we're here to bring stability to the area and we are not doing it (not taking their side I mean), so they also sometimes attack us to get the message across. We can deal with it.

Hamill, 31, and two other soldiers died on Nov. 26 in Baghdad when an EFP (explosively formed projectile) pierced their armored vehicle. He was scheduled to go home the next day.

Army First Lt. Amos C. R. Bock
March 12, Baghdad

The best we can tell is it was the work of hardcore Sunnis, think Al Qaeda types. So who gets the blame? That's right, us. I have actually heard out on the streets where some of these people think it was an American suicide bomber. Since that is one of our favorite tactics, I can see how the average hajji would come up with this idea. But on the [off] chance that the Americans didn't have anything to do with it, the Shia were going to burn a couple of Sunni mosques and kill a few Sunnis just to be on the safe side. The Sunnis are now worried about random violence aimed at them, so they start shooting up random cars that come into their neighborhoods, including police cars.

Now for the government response. A 20-hour curfew will be put into effect and enforced by the Iraqi Security Forces. These forces include the Iraqi Police (IP) and Public Order Battalions (POB) in our area. These wonderful forces are under the Ministry of Interior, which is a hotbed of militant Shia groups out of Iran. Now, the IP and POB are the ones that have been given an order by their government to protect the Sunni neighborhoods against reprisal attacks, and orders by their religious leaders to kill Sunnis. This is a no-brainer: they go about killing Sunnis and shooting up local mosques. The few who aren't actively involved in the violence refuse to do their jobs and stop the violence. The curfew may have worked in some parts of the country—think Green Zone—but it was a complete bust for the first three days here.

That same day Bock wrote a separate e-mail to his uncle: