Despite Raw Sewage In the Streets, U.S. Troops See Progress In Their Baghdad Neighborhood

Services such as a functioning sewage system and trash removal are lagging behind security gains.

Dick asks the young man, Eha Fariq, about his job and his mode of commuting, his family, and the length of his residency in the neighborhood. Dick is suspicious of some inconsistencies in the man's story—or there's a mix-up in the translation—but he's satisfied when the man confirms his story by producing a cellphone with a short video of him wielding a fire hose and dressed as a firefighter.

Persuading neighbors to inform on local criminals isn't easy. "The soldiers who patrolled the area in the past years were known for taking people back to their base and questioning them for hours or days," complains one Iraqi man. "It's not a good way to make friends." Dick hands him a business card with a telephone number on the back. "If anyone gives you trouble, give us a call and no one will know," he says. "And when the Mahdi Army knocks on your door an hour after we leave tonight, "says Dick, "tell them that all we talked about was gasoline."

The soldiers from Casino are on patrol several times a day. Often, they leave their armored vehicles behind and walk the streets around Poo Lake on foot. It's more dangerous for the men—leaving the base they pass by a hole blown into a wall by an antipersonnel ball-bearing bomb—but it gives them more face time with the residents. Kids line the streets around midday as the soldiers walk past, exchanging brief greetings—broken English on one side, halting Arabic on the other.

"Howdy mister! You give me chocolate?"

"Salaam alaikum." (The Arabic greeting, peace be upon you.)

While the troops are asking questions of residents on one block, a young Iraqi tells one of Dick's sergeants that, if given the chance, he'd blow up American soldiers with a bomb. Perhaps it was meant as a joke, but Dick doesn't see the humor—especially since an American soldier was blown up on a nearby road just days earlier. The young man is a college student—studying engineering, he says—which might explain why there are boxes of disassembled radio parts, keyless car entry remotes, and various other gadgets under his bed. More likely, says Dick, they are triggers for the improvised explosive devices the man admits he'd like to plant.

Wailing, the young man's mother tries to convince the soldiers that her son is just hotheaded and wasn't serious in his threat. Meanwhile, the young man's father, an English teacher, begins to pray loudly, kneeling on the living room floor as the soldiers open every drawer, cabinet, and closet in the house looking for explosives or other forbidden material. Soon, it's clear that Dick's men will have to take the young man back to the base for more questioning. (They release him later in the day, without evidence to detain him longer.)

Hiking across a vast open lots strewn with piles of trash and twisted scrap metal, the soldiers come to the final house on their patrol. A middle-aged woman wearing a black head scarf opens the door and eagerly welcomes the soldiers inside. She proudly points to her new kitchen tiles and windows, replaced after an explosion shattered them.

She, like many of her neighbors, has been ripped off by the kerosene delivery man. Dick says he'll look into it and investigate some more. As the soldiers depart, she hands each of the visitors a banana. Refusing the gifts is not an option, as the soldiers have learned, and can sometimes be taken as a slight, so they pocket the fruit like good neighbors and keep marching.