BAGHDAD’S CHAOS UNDERCUTS TACK PURSUED BY U.S.

By DEXTER FILKINS

Published: August 6, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5 — Over the past year, as American commanders pushed Iraqi forces to take over responsibility for this violent capital, Baghdad became a markedly more dangerous place.

Now the Americans are being forced to call in more of their own troops to bring the city under control.

The failure of the Iraqis to halt the slide into chaos in Baghdad undercuts the central premise of the American project here: that Iraqi forces can be trained and equipped to secure their own country, allowing the Americans to go home.

A review of previously unreleased statistics on American and Iraqi patrols suggests that as Americans handed over responsibilities to the Iraqis, violence in Baghdad increased.

In mid-June 2005, Americans conducted an average of 360 patrols a day, according to statistics released by the military. By the middle of February this year, the patrols ran about 92 a day — a drop of more than 70 percent. The first Iraqi brigade took over a small piece of Baghdad early last year. Now, Iraqi soldiers or police officers take the leading role in securing more than 70 percent of the city, including its most violent neighborhoods. They control all of Baghdad’s 6,000 checkpoints.

Even after the attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22 unleashed a wave of sectarian violence, the American patrols remained at a level lower than in the past. At the end of July, Americans were patrolling Baghdad 89 times a day — a quarter of their patrols in mid-June last year.

Thirteen months ago, Baghdad had about 19 daily violent events, like killings. Today, the daily average is 25 — an increase of more than 30 percent. Many of these attacks cause more than one death; some cause many more, like the rampage by Shiite gunmen in western Baghdad last month that left as many as 40 people dead.

On Thursday in Washington, senior American military commanders pointedly warned that Iraq was heading toward civil war.

To stop the slide, the United States has decided to double the number of American troops in the city, to about 14,200 from about 7,200.

American officials have declared Baghdad the country’s “center of gravity,” an arena that must be won if they are to succeed. The Americans and Iraqis say they are also preparing to bring in more Iraqi troops and spend at least $50 million for jobs and public services like electricity.

The decision to increase the number of American forces in the city appears to reflect a conviction that only American troops can bring the city under control.

“If we were willing to accept the high levels of casualties that occur in the city each month, then the Iraqi security forces could have continued handling the situation,” said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the spokesman for the American military in Iraq. “We can handle it at the levels we have. But if we want to reduce the violence, then we bring more forces into the city.”

American commanders say the greater violence in Baghdad does not necessarily suggest that the Iraqi forces are failing. Iraqi police officers and army soldiers are competent, the Americans say, but the explosion of sectarian violence has been of a scope and virulence that could overwhelm any army.

“I don’t think we moved too quickly,” General Caldwell said of putting the Iraqis in charge of Baghdad. “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the sectarian violence.”

Some independent observers say the Americans have a point — that the job of trying to secure a city of seven million people plagued by terrorism, sectarian violence and crime is a task of a magnitude that has never been attempted by a modern army. Some wonder whether the additional 7,000 American troops bound for the city will be enough.

“I don’t believe this operation was designed to turn a corner,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “I believe it was designed to stop a civil war.”

Putting Iraqi forces in the lead in various parts of the city, American commanders say, frees American troops to support the Iraqis in the most violent neighborhoods.

The number of Iraqi troops and police officers has steadily grown since the beginning of 2005. About 42,000 Iraqi police, army and paramilitary forces now patrol the capital.

In addition to 7,200 American forces, more than 1,000 American advisers are spread throughout the Iraqi police and army.

Still, since March, when the Americans and Iraqis began the first of two major operations to bring Baghdad under control, violence there has increased.

The United Nations said an average of 100 Iraqi civilians were being killed each day in Iraq, “the overwhelming majority” of them in Baghdad.

On the streets, the tallies are borne out in flesh and blood. Each day, the bodies pile up at Baghdad’s main morgue: burned with acid, riddled with bullets, blindfolded, handcuffed, drilled with holes.

For much of the city, the Tigris River forms the sectarian boundary, the Sunnis on the west and the Shiites in the east. Many Baghdad residents will no longer stray from their own neighborhoods. Shops in most neighborhoods close by 2 p.m., if they open at all. Gun-toting militiamen from the Mahdi Army roam the streets unmolested.

Gauging the performance of the Iraqi security forces is difficult. Every night, the American military sends e-mail messages announcing that Iraqis have raided insurgent hide-outs, detained suspects or thwarted suicide bombers.

“I tell you this personally,” said Brig. Gen. David D. Halverson, the deputy commander of the American division that oversees the capital, “the Iraqi forces have stood up and fought very well.”

Indeed, in some places, Iraqi troops have shown promise. On Haifa Street, where the first Iraqi brigade took over last year, the troops brought stability to the neighborhood in a way that American soldiers had failed to do by themselves.

Over all, though, their performance seems spotty. The Iraqi Army seems more disciplined and professional than the police, and seems to receive more respect from the Iraqi people.

The Iraqi police officers, who far outnumber Iraqi soldiers, seem mostly hapless, often standing by as mayhem swirls around them.

One day late last month, for instance, a group of 10 armed men stopped traffic in the Tarbiya neighborhood of Sadr City and stormed a streetside shop.

As the scene unfolded, two police vehicles drove by, with a clear view of the kidnapping under way. They did nothing. Minutes later, the armed men led an Iraqi shopkeeper to one of their cars and took him away.

Neither the Sunni insurgents nor the Iranian-backed Shiite militias seem to fear Iraqi police officers or soldiers.

In the Baghdad neighborhoods of Dawra and Amariya, for instance, Iraqi soldiers and policemen are often unable to retrieve the bodies of civilians or their own men killed in gun battles because they fear they will be attacked. The Americans often have to retrieve the bodies; the insurgents leave them alone.

The mixed quality of the Iraqi security forces lies at the heart of the capital’s chaos, some Iraqi leaders say.

“We have to have the courage to admit that there are structural problems in the way the security forces were recruited,” said Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister. “There has not been enough attention paid to quality, nor to leadership. Command and control remains a problem.”

Many of the militiamen now terrorizing the capital are directed by the very political parties that control the Iraqi government, he said.

“It’s an open secret that needs to be confronted head-on,” Mr. Salih said. “The status quo is profitable to too many in the political elite of this country.”

American commanders say they are planning to embark on a plan to secure one neighborhood at a time. They say they are optimistic about it, in part, because it does not rely exclusively on military force. Iraqi and American leaders are preparing to spend $50 million to put Iraqis to work and restore basic services like electricity and water that are absent from much of Baghdad.

The new plan is the brainchild of Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the deputy commander of American forces in Iraq, who has long argued that the political and economic components of defeating an insurgency are as important as lethal force.

“We are pulling out Coach Chiarelli’s playbook, and we are finally going to implement it,” General Caldwell said.

The Americans and the Iraqis say they hope to see results within 90 days.