1st Cavalry Div. Begins Watch in Baghdad
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CAMP VICTORY, Iraq (AP) -- 2nd Lt. Peter Balke's patrol had three objectives besides keeping an eye out for militants: stop by the Jordanian Embassy to check security, count the squatters in an old government building and investigate complaints that a new brothel had opened.
"Everybody got their money with them?" one of the soldiers shouted.
Balke smiled, then continued his briefing.
Balke, 22, is part of the new wave of troops replacing the one that stormed Iraq a year ago. He's a field artillery officer, freshly retrained in infantry tactics, and the eight-man squad he leads on nightly patrols through downtown Baghdad consists of cooks, mechanics and drivers.
When it comes to policing Iraq, he says, "Artillery, infantry - whatever you are - you can't expect to always get the mission of your branch."
Balke is assigned to Headquarters Battery, 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, part of the Fort Hood, Texas-based 1st Cavalry Division which will take over control of all of Baghdad from the 1st Armored Division in the next few weeks.
Its commanders have had more time than any other unit to prepare for their yearlong stint with Operation Iraqi Freedom 2.
Balke's patrol has three new armored Humvees. Almost every leader above the rank of sergeant has had cultural awareness training. All his men have brushed up on their infantry skills, which is critical since the battalion's 500 men are responsible for a neighborhood of more than 800,000 people.
Col. John Formica, Balke's brigade commander, said the 1st Cavalry is well-prepared to achieve the U.S. military's mission of establishing a stable, democratic government in Iraq.
"By the end of our tour, in western Baghdad at least, (Iraqis) should be able to be sovereign and conduct combat operations on their own with their own security forces and political structures," he said from his office on Camp Victory, near Baghdad airport.
Until then, the division will continue to conduct raids, patrols and training for Iraqi forces, Formica said.
As Balke's troops arrived at the Jordanian embassy, a half-dozen Iraqi police stood outside with a Jordanian security officer.
On Aug. 7, a bomb outside the embassy killed 19 people, and new threats are being received. The Iraqi police said they needed to slow traffic in front of the embassy at night, so Balke agreed to bring them sandbags to be used as speed bumps.
U.S. officers still do what ordinarily would be a civilian government's job: approve public works projects, settle property disputes, make sure the police do their duty. But Formica has ordered his officers to make the Iraqi neighborhood councils and other leaders reach decisions on their own.
"The cultural authority rests in the sheiks. You have the Islamic law that rests with the imams, and then you have what we're trying to work - the democratic law," Formica said.
"You reach back to your 11th and 12th years of education, where you studied problems of democracies and civics lessons ... It is exciting, and at times it is also bewildering - the responsibility that you have and the influence you have on people - but it is absolutely rewarding."
The squatters, next stop on Balke's patrol, pose just such a challenge. An imam gave them permission to take over the old government building, but the neighborhood council wants them to move.
Balke talked to the guards and established that 14 families had moved in. Over the next few days he would try to negotiate a solution.
Asked which is harder, fighting insurgents or teaching democracy, Formica laughed.
"I've trained for 22 years to do one," he said. "The other one just seems to come natural. Because we're Americans, we grew up with it."
Last stop: the brothel. Balke intended to order its closure, but the Iraqi police arrived earlier in the day and the alleged house of ill-repute already was abandoned.
For an officer whose mission is to prepare Iraqis for self-government, that was good news.
"Looks like the Iraqi police did their job," he said.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
