Great News..USA Has Victory in Iraq...Harry Reid has Lost

Returnees Find a Capital Transformed

Security Is Better, But Freedoms Are Tempered by Fear

By Sudarsan Raghavan

Washington Post Foreign Service

Friday, November 23, 2007; A01

BAGHDAD, Nov. 22 -- Iraqis are returning to their homeland by the hundreds

each day, by bus, car and plane, encouraged by weeks of decreased violence

and increased security, or compelled by visa and residency restrictions in

neighboring countries and the depletion of their savings.

Those returning make up only a tiny fraction of the 2.2 million Iraqis who

have fled Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. But they represent the

largest number of returnees since February 2006, when sectarian violence

began to rise dramatically, speeding the exodus from Iraq.

Many find a Baghdad they no longer recognize, a city altered by blast walls

and sectarian rifts. Under the improved security, Iraqis are gingerly

testing how far their new liberties allow them to go. But they are also

facing many barriers, geographical and psychological, hardened by violence

and mistrust.

Days after she returned from Syria, 23-year-old Melal al-Zubaidi and a

friend went to the market on a pleasant night to eat ice cream. It was a

short walk, yet unthinkable only a month ago for a woman in the capital.

Still, her parents were nervous, and Zubaidi wore a head scarf and an

ankle-length skirt to avoid angering Islamic extremists.

The Zubaidis, a Shiite Muslim family, have yet to pass another boundary.

When they fled Iraq five months ago, a Sunni family took over their large

house in Dora, a sprawling neighborhood in southern Baghdad. When the

Zubaidis returned this month, they were too scared to ask the new occupants

to leave. So they rented a small apartment in Mashtal, a mostly Shiite

district.

"Security is better," said Melal al-Zubaidi, who has a degree in

engineering. "But we still have fear inside ourselves."

Over the past two months, the level of nearly every type of violence -- car

bombings, assassinations, suicide attacks -- has dropped from earlier this

year. The downturn is a result of a confluence of factors: This year, 30,000

U.S. military reinforcements were funneled into Baghdad and other areas.

Sunni tribes and insurgents turned against the al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgent

group and partnered with U.S. forces to patrol neighborhoods and towns.

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, seeking to improve his movement's image,

ordered his Mahdi Army militia to freeze operations.

U.N. refugee officials estimate that 45,000 Iraqis returned from Syria last

month, while Iraqi officials say 1,000 are arriving each day.

The returnees find a capital that offers greater freedom of movement. Shops

are open later in many neighborhoods, and curfews have been reduced.

But those freedoms still come with constraints. Weddings, accompanied by

honking cars and lively bands, are reappearing on the streets, but they

still end before darkness falls. Visits to relatives and friends across

Baghdad are more possible but still hinge on which group or sect controls

each neighborhood. Some stores are selling alcohol, but fundamentalists

watch for those who breach their codes.

Luay Hashimi, 31, returned to his house in Dora with his wife and three

young children last month after fleeing to Syria nine months ago. Since

then, 11 other relatives who also had left for Syria -- Sunnis like him --

have come back, too.

Hashimi no longer sees bodies in the street when he opens his front door.

Sunni extremists no longer man checkpoints to search his vehicle for alcohol

or signs of collaboration with the government or the Americans. Roads are

being paved, and municipal workers are sprucing up parks and traffic

circles. His patch of Dora is now a fortress, surrounded by tall blast walls

that separate entire blocks.

"It's totally secured," said Hashimi, who was an intelligence officer during

the government of Saddam Hussein. But a few days ago, he drove across the

main highway to another section of Dora. He felt a familiar fear. "You're

lost there. You don't know who controls the area, Sunni or Shia, American

soldiers or Iraqi security forces. It's still chaotic."

He never drives on side streets, afraid of the unknown. On a recent day, he

wanted to visit a Shiite friend in Amil, a district controlled by the Mahdi

Army, whom he had not seen in a year. But his friend advised him not to

come. Hashimi felt relief. "I'm afraid to go to Shiite areas," he said.

Before Hashimi left Iraq, he used to pick up a friend every day from the

mixed enclave of Bayaa and take him to the security firm where they both

worked. But during his time in Syria, Shiite militias cleansed Bayaa of

Sunnis. "It's impossible for me to go there now," he said.

So he spends most of his days in his once-mixed neighborhood, now a mostly

Sunni area. A nearby tea shop is open until 10 p.m., but all other shops

close by 7 p.m. Under Hussein, they used to be open past midnight. The

walled-off streets have squeezed the pool of customers. Electricity, Hashimi

said, is still scarce.

Kareem Sadi Haadi, a civil engineer, did not want to return to Baghdad. Nor

did most of the Iraqis he knew in Syria. He and his family had escaped there

five months after the U.S. invasion. But he ran out of money after two

failed attempts to smuggle his family to Europe. Two weeks ago, they

returned to Karrada, the mostly Shiite district where the family once lived.

Today, they live in a rented apartment with furniture given to them by

relatives. Haadi said he is shocked by Baghdad's metamorphosis -- the

checkpoints, road closings, traffic jams, razor wire on buildings, and the

blast walls.

"Baghdad feels like a military base," said Haadi, 48, a Sunni. "Safety

without these barriers is real safety."

Although he has been back in the capital for two weeks, he has not yet seen

his sister who lives in the mainly Shiite neighborhood of Alam, controlled

by the Mahdi Army. She warned him that any stranger would be killed.

"Security is when I can get in my car at 10 p.m. and drive to see my

sister," Haadi said.

Four days ago, gunmen kidnapped a man outside the house of Haadi's in-laws,

also in Karrada.

"We don't go outside Karrada," said his wife, Anwar Mahdi, 43. "Now I am

afraid to go to my parents."

As soon as they can save enough money, Haadi said, they hope to go back to

Damascus. That could prove difficult. Syria now allows only Iraqis with

special visas to enter.

Melal al-Zubaidi is optimistic. When she fled to Syria, she was terrified to

drive through Anbar province, where Sunni militants were pulling Shiites

from buses and killing them. This time, the bus drove throughout the night.

"That comforted me," Zubaidi said. "I expect that security will improve day

by day. People are tired of conflict."

Still, she has lines that she is not yet willing to cross. She has not

visited her old university, fearing car bombs or kidnappings. In a nation

where neighbors are often as close as relatives, Zubaidi is wary of trusting

people in her community. "We're still afraid to meet new people," she said.

"This district is still strange for me. . . . I don't want to take risks."

She wonders when, or if, her family will return to Dora. Their old

neighbors, all Sunnis, had phoned her parents, urging them to return. But

they also told them that they were scared to ask the Sunni family to vacate

their house.

"People are saying Dora is better, but we're still afraid to go," Zubaidi

said. "We don't know that family's background."

Her mother, who once ran a preschool in Dora, is worried over one of their

former neighbors there. He encouraged them to leave their house because they

were Shiites. And now he says he has a friend who wants to rent her

preschool, now shuttered. He insists the area is too dangerous for the

family to return.

"He is always terrifying us. He told us there's always a storm after the

calm," said Um Melal, which means mother of Melal, who said she feared

having her name published. "We are suspicious. We can't go back, although

other Sunnis are telling us to come back, and saying, 'We'll protect you.' "

She said the improved security was not the only reason for returning to

Iraq. She wanted to pick up her pension payments as well as winter clothes

the family had stored away. Their Syrian residency permit has not expired.

"The situation is much better, but it still feels soft, unsteady," Um Melal

said. "Until now, we have not made a final decision to go back or stay.

We're waiting to see what happens.

"I expect Baghdad will come back sooner or later," she continued. "But that

needs time. If you want to build a wall, it takes you 10 days. But if you

want to demolish the wall, it takes you 10 minutes."

Hashimi is worried that the wall could easily crumble. He recently applied

to join the Iraqi police. But he doesn't trust the Shiite-led government to

integrate Sunnis into the political system, the police and army. And what if

the American troops leave?

"Of course, if the political process is still the same, and the Americans

withdraw from Dora, in a couple of days everything will collapse again."

--

Quote Of The Week

"The Clintons Are A Terminally Unethical And Vulgar Couple, And They?ve

Betrayed Everyone Who Has Ever Believed In Them." - Bob Herbert, Columnist

NY Times Clinton

"Harry Dope" <DemsHateAmerica1st@aol.com> wrote in message

news:47482c46$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

> Returnees Find a Capital Transformed

> Security Is Better, But Freedoms Are Tempered by Fear

>

> By Sudarsan Raghavan

> Washington Post Foreign Service

> Friday, November 23, 2007; A01

>

>

>

> BAGHDAD, Nov. 22 -- Iraqis are returning to their homeland by the hundreds

> each day, by bus, car and plane, encouraged by weeks of decreased violence

> and increased security, or compelled by visa and residency restrictions in

> neighboring countries and the depletion of their savings.

Any photos of this mass migration?

Of couse Dope forgets to mention that the number of people LEAVING still

outnumber the ones returning......

"Harry Dope" <DemsHateAmerica1st@aol.com> wrote in message

news:47482c46$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

> Returnees Find a Capital Transformed

> Security Is Better, But Freedoms Are Tempered by Fear

>

Fixed your quote....

> --

> Quote Of The Week

> "Bush and Cheney Are A Terminally Unethical And Vulgar Pair, And They've

> Ignored Everyone Who Has Ever Believed In Them." - Bob Herbert, Columnist

> NY Times

>

>

>

In article <47482c46$0$8668$4c368faf@roadrunner.com>

"Harry Dope" <DemsHateAmerica1st@aol.com> wrote:

>

<nothing of significance>

Too little, too late.

Hillary Clinton will be President, and the Democrats will have a cloture-proof Congress.

And it's all due to George 'WMD' Bush!

> Too little, too late.

>

> Hillary Clinton will be President, and the Democrats will have a

> cloture-proof Congress.

>

> And it's all due to George 'WMD' Bush!

When Newt Gingrich engineered his GOP takeover of Congress, reducing

Clinton's reach, Rush Limbaugh went on his television show and predicted

great things for "conservative" leadership and this "Republican Revolution".

Rush claimed that all the reforms conservatives wanted to accomplish, they

would now start actually doing them, and he bragged "Watch us!"

Since then, we have watched, in horror, as Dubya ended all that, simply by

pushing all these "conservative values" to their logical conclusions. Fiscal

and moral bankruptcy, and hundreds of thousands of lives squandered for

nothing.

And still these idiots get on the mic and blame Liberals...

--

Phlip