By David Mac Dougall

I spent the day yesterday in Sadr City. We were guests of Brigadier General Will Grimsley, Deputy Commanding General of the 4th Infantry Division.

It was my first trip to Sadr City since March last year – although I’ve made forays there every year since 2004 on various embeds. It’s difficult to describe what conditions are like in Sadr City.

It truly is one of the worst slums I’ve ever seen. The General’s convoy made a stop in one of the main markets – but it wasn’t doing a thriving trade. Raw sewage ran down the middle of the street, with construction debris and rubble littering the sidewalk. Most businesses and stores were closed.

A make-shift gas station had sprung up, selling fuel from oil drums (it’s one of the ways militias and criminal gangs make money – illegal fuel). Men huddled in doorways, and seemed to sway between being suspicious and curious about our visit.

If anything, conditions in Sadr City have gotten worse since my last visit in March 2007. At that time, militia fighters had suspended their battles against US and Iraqi forces. Troopers from the 82nd Airborne we were embedded with, were able to patrol the streets without any problems. Now, Sadr City has been plunged into violence again, with daily and nightly battles.

At one patrol base we visited, US troop numbers have increased, and they’re digging in with more defenses – even building a giant wall through part of the neighborhood. We saw some Iraqi troops, who seemed to be half-heartedly sitting on a tank, manning their checkpoint.

One commander I talked to had recently witnessed Iraqi forces simply quitting their positions after a battle (this same incident was reported in an article by Michael Gordon of the New York Times last week).

The commander urged the Iraqis to stay at their posts and continue the fight, but they refused. He told me some Iraqi soldiers have “small heart syndrome” – they’re just not up to standing their ground and fighting. We met another US officer who’s going to open an assistance center. The idea is that Sadr City residents can come in with their problems (like a broken sewage pipe, lack of electricity, trash in the streets, etc) and the Americans will try to fix the problem for them.

We saw these centers opening up a lot in 2003 & 2004 – it was one of the first big civil affairs efforts across Iraq, before there was an elected Government in place. So I asked how come the brigade was opening up an assistance center now – why wasn’t the Iraqi Government taking care of the basic problems of citizens?

The officer told me that the Iraqi Government has the money, they just weren’t spending it. I guess once again it’s down to US taxpayers to fix Iraq. Our six hours with General Grimsley went by pretty quickly, but not without some small dramas. Two mortars exploded just 50 feet from one patrol base we visited. The noise was pretty loud, and soldiers quickly brought pieces of shrapnel to show the General. In another street we walked in, we saw the scars of a roadside bomb which exploded just a few hours before.