'Gated Communities' For the War-Ravaged

"Most of the Iraqis have a card that tells where they live," Campbell said. "So if they don't have one for that particular area, then [soldiers will] go through the biometrics and see if there's any past history of any activity that we would not want to have."

Many weary residents of southern Ghazaliyah are pleased with the effort to shut out the blood bath, the soldiers said, while others have griped about the inconveniences it presents.

Earlier this month, Fowler led off the nightly meeting of Iraqi and American soldiers, gathered around a dining table to review operations on PowerPoint slides.

"Because of your help, I have gone one full week without being shot at," said Fowler, a tall Southerner famed among his peers for having survived 13 roadside bombings unscathed, 11 of them in Ghazaliyah.

Soon he addressed the barrier plan. The rural lanes to the west would be sealed off soon, he said, "so terrorists cannot use the farm roads to get into Ghazaliyah."

Many of the Iraqi soldiers nodded. But not Maj. Hathem Faek Salman, who fears the barriers are more likely to anger residents than shut out violence.

"This is not a good plan," Salman, 40, had said before the meeting. "If my region were closed by these barriers, I would hate the army, because I would feel like I was in a big jail. . . . If you want to make the area secure and safe, it is not with barriers. We have to win the trust of the people."

The next day, a convoy rumbled out to Bakriyah, a small village west of Ghazaliyah -- just outside the walls and a little more than two miles from the civilian checkpoint. It was a peaceful mission: to track down a town leader who is on a local citizens' council that the soldiers meet with regularly. The man, Najim Abdullah, had skipped a recent meeting, and the soldiers thought his absence might have been to protest the barriers.

Three U.S. soldiers, an interpreter and an Iraqi soldier removed their helmets and sat down on the ornate carpets in Abdullah's home, leaning against the walls with pillows propped behind their backs. Abdullah's wide-eyed grandsons served sweet tea.

Abdullah, cross-legged in a gray dishdasha, or traditional robe, said he had missed the meeting because of an emergency. But the gated community idea, he said, "doesn't make any sense." His villagers had long driven into Ghazaliyah's west end to go to its markets or continue toward central Baghdad. Now they would have to drive around it.

"The barriers cannot be moved until all of the Ghazaliyah barrier plan is in place," responded Lt. Lance Rae, 25. "But we will not forget the people down here. They've been very faithful to us."

"It's your order. I disagree with it. But I accept it," Abdullah said. "It does not matter to me. It matters to the people."

Abdullah rose, turned toward the blank white wall and sketched an invisible picture of the area with his hands. He pointed left, to Bakriyah. And a few feet right, to the checkpoint.

"It will take two hours to get from here to here!" he said.

Rae simply nodded and said, "Security is the key."