US troops tell Iraqis they can still bring stability to Baghdad
BAGHDAD -- US soldiers strolled through neighborhoods in troubled north Baghdad yesterday, poking their heads into storefronts and delivering the same message all day: Donald H. Rumsfeld's departure does not mean American forces will abandon efforts to stabilize the capital.
Yet, as they walked the dangerous streets, the soldiers carried with them their own and varied opinions of the war and the man who ran it from the Pentagon.
Specialist Wayne Thimas, a 32-year-old Bostonian with the First Battalion, 17th Infantry, 172d Stryker Brigade Combat Team, said Rumsfeld's departure meant nothing to him.
"It's kinda weird, but this is just another day for us. Nothing changes here. You hear explosions and gunshots, you feel the explosions, and you don't even flinch -- it's just another day in Baghdad," Thimas said.
Sergeant David Alberg, 22, of Modesto, Calif., said the hard-driving Rumsfeld won't be missed:
"I don't think you'll find many people around here who have anything good to say about him. Last summer people were really upset when two days before we were supposed to leave for Kuwait [en route home], he extended us another 120 days."
Ammar Kajjo, 34, a Kurd under contract as an Army interpreter, found a middle ground.
"I think history will remember him as the engineer of the Iraq war, and a lot of people don't like him because of it. For some reason, for the American people, the positive sides of the war don't sell," said Kajjo, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The 172d Stryker Brigade's chief, Colonel Al Kelly, sought out Iraqi opinions on Rumsfeld as he gave candy to children near a Shi'ite mosque where troops recently uncovered a large cache of hidden weapons.
"How are you feeling today? Did you hear the news about Rumsfeld? What do you think about it?" Kelly asked residents.
"I'm curious about what they're thinking today. It's a leading question that gets to deeper security issues, and the reassurance they get from us being out here today is a byproduct," he said.
Soldiers waded through a busy outdoor vegetable market in Hurriyah, a formerly Sunni neighborhood now dominated by Shi'ites.
It's part of a crescent of Shi'ite dominance stretching from Sadr City in Baghdad's northeast across the Tigris River to neighborhoods such as Hurriyah in the west, where US forces have seen increasingly sophisticated attacks.
The owner of a fruit stand flagged down the soldiers to tell them he had heard the news but didn't think a new defense secretary would make much difference here.
"His resignation won't affect the situation in Iraq or the United States, and it won't affect Washington's support for the government of [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki," said 55-year-old Abdul Zahra Kabi, wearing a red-checked Arab headdress and sitting on a wood crate.
"I don't think it will either," Kelly said.
