Troops Move Cautiously as Sadr City Remains Tense

BAGHDAD, May 11 -- On a hot, gray and dusty morning, Lt. Col. Gary Volesky's heavily armored patrol rumbled slowly past the remnants of a building his forces had destroyed only two nights before. A crowd of youths was working to rebuild it, cinder block by cinder block.

Volesky ordered his five Bradley Fighting Vehicles, with long guns and missiles mounted on top, to take a left rather than wade into a crowd that began to move excitedly across the roadway and its rudimentary barriers.

"We don't want to create a scene," Volesky told his gunners. "We'll see what the boss says about it."

By boss, he meant Col. Robert Abrams, the commander of U.S. forces in the Sadr City area, who had ordered the destruction of the building, which housed an office of Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Sadr City, the Baghdad front in Sadr's rebellion against the presence of U.S.-led occupation forces, was largely quiet Tuesday, two days after fighting there killed 34 insurgents. The masked gunmen who blocked streets, shut down commerce and drove police officers and civil administration workers out of their offices on Sunday had all but withdrawn from Sadr City's smelly, trash-filled alleys.

On Tuesday, the neighborhood presented a confusing panorama, making it unclear who among the impoverished throng was friend or foe. Residents interviewed later generally blamed the violence on Sadr, a 30-year-old militia leader and the son of the assassinated cleric for whom Sadr City is named.

But the Americans were taking no chances.

They moved through the huge slum only in the Bradleys, which are impervious to rocket-propelled grenades, the rebels' heaviest weapon. The more vulnerable Humvees and foot patrols did not take to the streets. American municipal chores in Sadr City that had been delayed for a month -- fixing sewers, clearing trash, providing jobs -- have been postponed indefinitely.

Keeping order in Sadr City is an important objective for the U.S. and allied commanders in Iraq, authorities here say.

The neighborhood contains one-third of Baghdad's 5.5 million people, but violence in Sadr City on Sunday rattled the nerves of the entire capital. And beyond Baghdad, Sadr's revolt has encompassed a half-dozen Shiite cities, complicating efforts to pacify a country troubled by a year-long Sunni Muslim insurgency.

Tuesday's Bradley Fighting Vehicle tour of Sadr City highlighted the lingering concerns of U.S. troops. Besides the violence, a year of futile efforts to improve conditions in Sadr City has fed hostility, said Volesky, the tall and lean battalion commander in charge of combat operations in the neighborhood.

"We've got to transit as fast as we can to improving the quality of life," he said.

From the metallic insides of an M2 Bradley, the outside world is viewed through a television screen. The images are either old-style black and white or greenish from a device that picks up heat emissions. An otherwise invisible figure in a dark doorway appeared as a ghostly haze.

There was a busy market, rows of open storefronts, piles of tires and scrap metal, wandering shoppers and unsupervised children. Sheep, mules and horses walked past on carpets of garbage. Most of the bystanders watched impassively. Some scowled. A few offered friendly thumbs-up. Police stations were once again populated by U.S.-trained officers.