U.S. Confronts Reality of Iraq in 2006

In this image released by the U.S. Marine Corps, Marines with Bravo Company, 9th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, perform a 21-shot rifle salute in honor of Marine Cpl. Aaron L. Seal of Elkhart, Ind, during a memorial ceremony held at the main-side chapel at Camp al Taqaddum in Iraq's volatile al Anbar province, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006. Seal, 23, was killed Sunday, Oct. 1, 2006 while serving with a South Bend-based Marine Reserve engineering company in Baghdad. At least 2,939 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003. (AP Photo/U.S. Marines, Lance Cpl. Ryan Busse) (Lance Cpl Ryan Busse - AP)

In the wake of Samarra, Iraq's leading Shiite clerics, who had cautioned patience during years of vicious sectarian attacks, could no longer curb the tide of Shiite retribution.

The bombing and the frenzied vendetta that followed also sabotaged American efforts to promote trust among Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish politicians at a critical moment. Iraq's leaders were just beginning the process of forming a government of national unity after the December parliamentary elections.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who had worked tirelessly to promote a political agreement, said repeatedly that a unity government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds offered the best chance for Iraq to build a stable democracy on the wreckage of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.

Although negotiations continued and a government took office three months later, sectarian bitterness runs so deep that al-Maliki has been unable to forge an effective administration and see through a program of national reconciliation.

Instead, political momentum belonged to the sectarian extremists _ armed gangs of Shiites and Sunnis who kidnap, murder and intimidate each other. The United Nations estimated that by last summer, an average of 100 people were dying each day _ most of them in the Baghdad area.

Scores of bodies appear almost daily in vacant lots and side streets of the capital, often with horrific signs of torture _ holes driven into the skull and eyes gouged out.

Iraqis fear the extremist goal is to divide Baghdad, a religiously and ethnically mixed city, into a mostly Shiite zone east of the Tigris river and a largely Sunni area to the west.

Al-Maliki promised to restore order and as one of his first acts, he announced a major crackdown to rid the capital of the killers. He cited the threat posed by al-Qaida and other Sunni religious extremists.

That angered Sunni leaders, who complained that the real threat was posed by Shiite militias, including the Mahdi Army of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a close al-Maliki ally.

With the Iraqi army and police riddled with Shiite militiamen, many Sunnis saw the security operation as a cover to crack down on their community. Many Sunnis who had stayed out of the insurgency took up arms to protect their neighborhoods. Many Shiites did the same.

But the crackdown faltered, forcing the U.S. command to send thousands of American soldiers into the streets, some from flashpoints in the insurgent-ridden Anbar province. That led to a spike in U.S. casualties _ more than 100 dead in October alone _ but failed to stop the violence.

U.S. soldiers complained that the Iraqi troops weren't motivated. Privately, Americans complained that they simply didn't have enough troops of their own to quell the violence.

With casualties rising, opposition to the war soared in the United States. Congress established the Baker commission to study ways to reverse the slide, and the Republican loss of the House and Senate in the October elections fueled cries for a course change.

As the year drew to a close, the commission released its recommendations: more regional diplomacy, shifting the U.S. military role from combat to training, and pressing the Iraqi factions to compromise on the nation's future.

But the commission offered no solution to the core problem _ the absence of a genuine political agreement among Iraq's sectarian and ethnic factions.

Instead, the country is locked in a bitter struggle for power as all sides try to ensure a strong position for the day when the Americans go home. The Baker commission recommended that the U.S. reduce economic and military aid if the Iraqis can't reach such an agreement.

"The U.S. effectively sent a bull in to liberate the china shop," former Pentagon analyst Anthony Cordesman said. "And the study group now called upon the U.S. to threaten to remove the bull if the shop doesn't fix the china."