Over 60 Days, Troops Suppressed an Uprising

"It was pretty perfect," said Savina, of Agawam, Mass. "They say three out of 10 soldiers never pull the trigger in battle. Fortunately, my platoon doesn't have that problem."

The close-quarters combat made it impossible for Dunn to call in airstrikes without risking friendly-fire casualties. Apache helicopters above the city were vulnerable to ground fire if they hovered long above the battlefield in search of a safe shot.

"Everything easy was hard that day," said Dunn, a 30-year-old from Woodbridge, Va.

As daylight approached on April 9, Silk's platoon pulled back to the middle of the bridge, giving the Apaches and an AC-130 gunship room to fire. Airstrikes on the traffic circle and the palm groves that lined the river drove the insurgents back.

Near dawn, Silk's platoon pushed across the bridge to find bloody tracks where wounded insurgents had been dragged away. Waiting in the traffic circle were two Bradley Fighting Vehicles sent as a greeting by Wall from the CPA headquarters.

"They seemed kind of pleased," said Wall.

Governor Street, Karbala: May 1-11

By May 1, about 200 Sadr militants had dug in near Karbala's gold-domed shrines of Abbas and Hussein, two of Shiite Islam's most sacred sites. The militia controlled Karbala's government and had access to its funds.

Karbala had been the responsibility of a brigade of Polish soldiers. Like Spain, Ukraine and other U.S. partners responsible for security in the Shiite south, the Polish government had prohibited its soldiers from conducting offensive operations. The rules rendered them useless when Sadr's militia rose up.

"We gave coalition partners land to manage because we thought we were at a particular phase in the mission," said Maj. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the division commander. "We thought we had transitioned in certain places. When the uprising occurred and that transition took a step backwards, it put them in an awkward position."

"Essentially we had ceded control of the city on April 7," said Lt. Col. Garry P. Bishop, commander of the 37th Armored Regiment's 1st Battalion.

Bishop, 40, a fiery West Point graduate from Philadelphia, was ordered to drive Sadr's forces out of Karbala. He believed the militia planned to make a stand in the shadow of the shrines. His plan called for a show of force that might frighten off Sadr's men and avoid a pitched battle over the mosques.

On May 5, beginning at an amusement park that the militia used as a weapons depot, Bishop's tanks moved down Governor Street toward the shrines. Kiowa and Apache helicopters zipped overhead, clearing snipers from hotel roofs. Sadr militants, meanwhile, drew ammunition from stockpiles along irrigation canals that were off-limits to tanks.

"As we started moving along, we'd be getting pinged with sniper fire, RPGs," said Sgt. David Taylor, 37, a veteran tank commander from Copperas Cove, Tex. "They'd pop out from behind walls and take potshots at us."

In two-man teams, soldiers left the tanks to disable roadside bombs, snipping wires and blowing up the devices. "Snipers were our biggest problem," said Sgt. Aaron Owen, 30, of Powell, Wyo., whose driver was shot in his helmet. "They chewed us up pretty good. I've got holes in my pants" from shrapnel, he said.

The flailing quality of the insurgents' early stand gave way to a more skilled defense the closer troops got to the Mukhaiyam mosque, a former funeral home that Sadr had declared a holy place. U.S. commanders throughout the south saw the same pattern.