By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 23, 2004; Page A17

SAMARRA, Iraq, Dec. 22 -- The soldiers kicked the wooden doors open and swarmed through the houses, rolling up rugs, looking through cabinets, searching boxes, pushing aside couches. Within minutes, they had lined up the Iraqi men they had found inside. The men were taken outside and made to squat in the late-night darkness, their breath streaming out in faint, wispy clouds as their hands pushed flat against a concrete wall.

The soldiers were from the U.S. Army Special Forces, the Iraqi National Guard and Apache Company of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment. They were looking for a suspected insurgent, but the insurgent was not there.

The Sunday night raid was what soldiers here call a "dry hole." They received an intelligence tip, and it led to nothing. They broke down doors and interrogated people who appeared to have no connection to the war the United States is waging. The soldiers paid the families in U.S. dollars for the broken door jambs and the splintered cabinet doors that hung askew.

The frustrating dead end was a symptom of what officers here agree is a virtual intelligence meltdown in Samarra, a city 65 miles north of Baghdad in the Sunni Triangle, an area where the insurgency runs deep. Rebels have intimidated the local population, launching attacks from neighborhoods where residents now fear the consequences of helping the American occupiers.

"It's all about intimidation," said Lt. Col. Eric O. Schacht, commander of the Army's 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, which oversees Samarra. Schacht said the spreading fear had stymied his unit's ability to gather intelligence. "The residents do know who the bad guys are. They're afraid. It's a daily struggle that we have to fight.

"We just always have to get ahead" of the insurgents, he added. "They're pretty good at getting their message out."

The message is carried in mighty explosions that rock this city, in AK-47 assault rifle fire, in mortar attacks, and even in carefully placed propaganda that warns Iraqis that cooperation with the Americans will not be tolerated. Masked men arrive at the doors of Samarrans who have been seen talking to soldiers. The residents are told that if they provide any assistance to the soldiers, they will be killed.

On Tuesday afternoon, soldiers from Bushmaster Company of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment cleared residents out of a neighborhood where they were preparing to detonate what was believed to be an improvised bomb. One man came to his front gate and timidly spoke with an interpreter working for the U.S. forces. Muhammed Hassan, 42, his eyes darting across the large dirt lot next to his home, said he was uncomfortable letting American soldiers onto his roof to secure the area.

Just days earlier, Hassan's uncle had been killed for opposing the insurgents. Hassan moved his son out of the area because insurgents threatened to kill his family if he continued to let the soldiers into his home. Masked men came to his door.

"They all watch us and follow all of us," Hassan said. "This is the fifth time the Americans have put snipers on the roof. . . . Of course we are afraid. Of course we don't want to help."

Residents in hostile areas of the city often tell soldiers that they don't know any "thieves," using the English word, and haven't seen any illegal activity, even when they were near an attack. Immediately after a rocket-propelled grenade injured three soldiers this week near a downtown school, several local families said they didn't hear it or see it. Some vaguely described a white car carrying two masked men.

Capt. Eliot Patrick, 28, the 1st Battalion's intelligence officer, said he has to operate on whatever scraps of information can be culled from the community. Tips largely come from an extremely small percentage of the population.

"They're afraid to come forward because of the reprisal they expect" from the insurgents, said Patrick, of Fairfax Station. "We're in a bit of a rut."

The insurgents have become bolder in the past few weeks, posting signs at schools that say the United States is losing the war and claiming that American forces suffered tens of thousands of casualties in the battle for Fallujah. When a soldier went to remove one of the signs on Tuesday, someone fired a machine gun at him.

At another school, graffiti supported "Jihad in Samarra" and assailed Iraqi government officials as "dogs who obey the Americans." Residents blame foreigners, claiming the insurgents are Syrians or Iranians. They deny that Iraqis could be doing this to their own people.

"There are thieves in Samarra," said the headmaster of one school for girls, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared the insurgents would target her. "I don't know them, and I hate them. They have threatened to kidnap me, and I am very afraid of them. But we need the help from the Americans. We need democracy."

Forced to gather intelligence in such an environment, U.S. soldiers -- trained warriors -- have become more like heavily armed police officers, patrolling the streets in an effort to keep crime down and protect citizens from random explosions and gunfire. Some troops liken the effort to community policing -- walking a beat and learning the neighborhood to gain trust and confidence from residents.

The dangers are not hard to find. Within an hour on Tuesday, Capt. William A. Rockefeller, 35, of Virginia Beach, encountered three mines. Two were Italian-made antitank mines placed along paths where U.S. troops were expected to drive. Rockefeller's patrol had traveled one roadway minutes before one of the mines was apparently laid down; insurgents knew the troops would be making a return trip.

The third mine was left 150 yards from the entrance to Patrol Base Uvanni, where the U.S. troops live.

While soldiers worked to defuse it, a mortar round went off nearby, forcing Rockefeller to move his soldiers to a nearby abandoned home for cover.

The attackers apparently crossed a checkpoint run by Iraqi National Guardsmen without being stopped, officials said.

On Wednesday, Apache Company was planning a late-night raid at another house in hopes of finding a top suspect or a weapons cache. There was also the possibility of finding a clue that might lead them to an arrest, or a kill. Often, it doesn't work out though.

"Without good intelligence and knowledge of where the bad guys are, we can't chase the bad guys," said Capt. Benjamin Marlin, the company commander who led the futile raids this week. "They don't wear uniforms. It makes it very difficult to know their locations and their targeting. We have to jump on every little piece of intel we get, and often that leads to misfocused efforts, bothering people we don't need to bother, and frustration."

Schacht, the battalion commander, said the campaign to win the Iraqi people over -- one that is proving more successful with the children here, who are plied with candy and soccer balls -- is moving slowly. The lack of cooperation among residents is making his job tougher, he said.

The lack of interpreters also increases the difficulty. Hired locals have repeatedly quit after receiving threats, and Samarra is currently without a single interpreter. The one U.S. forces sometimes use is on vacation for a few days.

Soldiers, in the meantime, do their best to find people who speak broken English, or they use improvised sign language.

"I think it's just going to be a matter of time," Schacht said. "Trust-building is not something you can do rapidly. It's just going to take persistence and time."