Iraq: Baghdad Calmer, but Politics Not

An Iraqi policeman stands at the site where a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives-packed Mercedes near a row of stores in the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2007. The blast killed at least 15 people, police and hospital officials said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) (Karim Kadim - AP)

U.S. officials also say sectarian killings in Baghdad have dropped by more than 50 percent from a high point last winter.

But civilian deaths nationwide rose last month to their second-highest level this year _ at least 1,809 according to an Associated Press count.

About 4.4 million Iraqis _ out of a prewar population of 26 million _ have fled their homes to escape the violence, half to neighboring countries such as Syria and Jordan, according to the International Organization for Migration. Another 60,000 more flee every month.

They leave behind a Baghdad radically altered from before the war, when Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians lived side-by-side. Now, neighborhoods are calm only after their minority community has fled. Armed neighborhood men keep outsiders away.

"No one has control of Baghdad _ not the U.S. Army, not the militias," said Nazer al-Shimeri, a Sunni. "The situation in Baghdad is unclear. Iraqi families are in a total dilemma."

Yet that doesn't mean the troop buildup is lacking some successes.

Since the last of the U.S. reinforcements hit the streets in June, American forces have moved to secure routes into Baghdad and curb the flow of car bombs and fighters. American soldiers also swept through Baqouba, 35 miles north of the capital, to drive out al-Qaida.

Those operations appear to have reduced the high-profile car bombings in the capital. U.S. commanders maintain that a more robust U.S. presence has given more Iraqis confidence to resist the gunmen who ruled their lives.

Senior commanders also insist al-Qaida in Iraq, the Sunni extremist group branded "enemy No. 1," is on the run. But analysts fear that once the American troops have gone, Shiite militias and Sunni gunmen will reappear.

On Thursday, a panel of retired senior U.S. military and police officers said Iraq's security forces would be unable to take control of the whole country over the next 18 months.

"No military effort can be sustained without major progress on the political front, which the surge was supposed to bring about in the first place, but hasn't," said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East director of the International Crisis Group.

In a two-page letter to U.S. forces in Iraq, dated Friday, Petraeus acknowledged that the troop buildup has "not worked out as we had hoped" because of the lack of political reconciliation in Iraq.