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U.S. Deaths In Iraq Fall To Lowest Of the War
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Despite the increased sense of security, deep-rooted tensions remain that continue to provoke violence. This week, more than 50 people were killed in a series of attacks related to a power struggle over control of the oil-rich and ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq.
The situation grew more tense on Thursday when the Kurdish majority on the council of Tamim province, which includes Kirkuk, voted to join the neighboring Kurdish regional government.
The move is largely symbolic, because the Iraqi parliament would have to approve it, but it provoked denunciations by representatives of rival ethnic communities, who said they would fight to prevent the Kurds from taking over the city.
"The fires of Kirkuk will eat all Iraq's cities and even the Americans," said Hussein Ali al-Jubouri, the head of the largest Sunni Arab political bloc in Kirkuk.
Also on Thursday, the Reuters news service called on the U.S. military to release a cameraman working for the organization or publicly detail the evidence against him. The journalist, Ali al-Mashhadani, who has also worked for National Public Radio and the BBC, was detained Saturday in the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone, according to Reuters.
A U.S. military spokesman said Mashhadani, who is based in western Anbar province, was detained "because of a perceived security threat" but did not elaborate.
At military bases across Iraq, American soldiers have been paying close attention to the security situation and what it might mean for the timing of their return home.
"My soldiers ask me that every day: I heard a rumor they're reducing our deployment! Is it true?" said 1st Lt. Matthew Linton, 24, of Florida, N.Y., a platoon leader based in the once-volatile Sadr City district of Baghdad. "Everybody wants to come home early."
Linton's troops spent Thursday distributing $2,500 grants to merchants in Sadr City's Jamila Market and chatting with the owner of a candy store.
"When we used to walk the streets in April, they were empty and we would be destroying buildings used by enemy positions," he said. "Now we walk the same streets that were covered in sewage and rubble and utter destruction, and they are vibrant and full of people.
"As the situation improves, it feels more like the race is almost finished," Linton said, "compared to you're in the middle of the race and you have a long way to go."
Marine Cpl. Stephen M. McGinnis was first sent to Anbar in 2006 and returned for a second deployment in May.
"I noticed the decrease in violence immediately," McGinnis, 23, of Philadelphia, wrote in an e-mail.
"I knew it was safer, but I refused to believe it. I still had the same image of trash-filled streets and decaying buildings. When we drove through the city that first night, I was in shock," McGinnis said.
But McGinnis noted that Iraq remains a war zone.
"The threat is still out there," he said. "We are still in a country where there are people who wish us harm, so I can't say I feel completely safe."
Staff writer Dan Eggen in Kennebunkport, Maine; staff researcher Madonna Lebling in Washington; and Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.
