Iraqi soldiers flee positions in Sadr City

Retreat leaves crucial stretch of road undefended

BAGHDAD - A company of Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions last night in Sadr City, defying American soldiers who implored them to hold the line against the Shi'ite militias.

The retreat left a crucial stretch of road on the front lines undefended for hours and led to a tense series of exchanges between American soldiers and about 50 Iraqi troops who were fleeing.

Captain Logan Veath, the commander of Company B, the American unit on the scene, pleaded with the Iraqi major who was leading his troops away from the Sadr City fight, urging him to return to the front.

"If you turn around and go back up the street those soldiers will follow you," Veath said. "If you tuck tail and cowardly run away they will follow up that way, too."

Veath's pleas failed, and senior American and Iraqi commanders mounted an urgent effort to regain the lost ground. An elite Iraqi unit was rushed in and with the support of the Americans began to fight its way north.

This episode was a blow to the American effort to push the Iraqis into the lead in the struggle to wrest control of parts of Sadr City from the Mahdi Army militia and what Americans and Iraqis say are Iranian-backed groups.

That approach was intended to build up the Iraqi military's fighting capacity and put an Iraqi face on the operation in Sadr City, which is occurring in a Baghdad bastion of support for Moqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric. Two weeks ago, more than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers deserted their posts during the fight against militias in Basra.

Yesterday's desertions in Sadr City, although involving a particularly hesitant Iraqi unit, left many of the Americans soldiers wondering about the tenacity of their Iraqi allies.

"It bugs the hell out of me," said Sergeant George Lewis, the platoon sergeant for Company B's Third Platoon. "We don't see any progress being made at all. We hear these guys in firefights. We know if we are not up there helping these guys out we are making very little progress."

Company B, which is part of the First Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, moved into Sadr City at the end of March as part of a broader effort to secure the southernmost portion of the densely populated Sadr City.

That area has been used by militias to fire 107mm rockets toward the Green Zone. The Americans' mission is to stop the rocket firings and help the Iraqi government establish a modicum of control.

Some Iraqi soldiers have fought hard. But American soldiers have been regularly coaching them on how to protect their patrol bases, conserve ammunition, and evacuate their wounded.

One big problem is that the Iraqi troops have responded to militia gunfire with such intense fusillades that the soldiers have endangered civilians, American soldiers, and even their own forces. The barrage of Iraqi Army fire has become such a regular occurrence that some American soldiers are worried that militia fighters have tried to insert themselves between nearby Iraqi units to induce the Iraqi soldiers to fire on one another.

In a recent visit to the Iraqi forward position, First Sergeant Martin Angulo of Company B sought to coach the Iraqis on how to use their newly acquired M-16s to direct precision fire at a militia sniper who had been tormenting the Iraqi forces from an alleyway.

The problem yesterday, however, was more serious: an Iraqi retreat that left a gaping hole in the most forward position on a critical thoroughfare in the Tharwar section of Sadr City. The episode began when Major Sattar, leader of an Iraqi company that had taken up positions 700 yards in front of the Americans, suddenly appeared at Company B's field headquarters in the southern part of Sadr City.

The major's company had replaced a more battle-hardened Iraqi unit just two days earlier, and he had been unhappy to find that he would be occupying a position to the front of the better trained and equipped Americans.

"Every house in Sadr City probably has one of their sons in the Mahdi Army," he observed when American soldiers visited his position on Monday. "So it is hard to convince people to believe in the Iraqi Army."