After 4 years of war Iraq forces control 8.2 percent of Baghdad's 474 neighborhoods

[sabra]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N21393261.htm

<snip>

Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil said Iraqi forces led security efforts -- with U.S. oversight -- in 8.2 percent of Baghdad's 474 neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods have have been cleared of insurgent fighters and are now being "retained" by Iraqi forces, he said.

U.S. forces control more than 46 percent of the city's neighborhoods, Fil said. Once violence is reduced, those areas will move to the "retain" phase generally led by Iraqi forces.

...

"The fundamental question: are the Iraqi security forces sufficient to truly protect the city? I do not believe they are," Fil told reporters at the Pentagon via video link from Baghdad.

The ability of Iraqi army and police forces to assume responsibility for the country's security is key to a raging debate in Congress over the number of U.S. troops that should remain in Iraq.

[Robbien]

1. Iraqis are trying to protect themselves with keys and barrels

According to McClatchy

Yesterday when I returned home my brother gave me a key!

“This is your key .….

" “My key?! For what?”

“For the chains that connect barrels with each other located all round our bloc.” …

“Does that mean that we now live in a small, locked city with a key?!”

At this moment I smiled when I remembered the key of the City of Good Fortune … But it is a key of The City of Sorrow now. Our district is blocked because the terrorists' threats of attack.

Two months ago there was a huge explosion in my neighborhood that targeted the residential buildings in my neighborhood which resulted in many victims and destroyed many houses that made residents think of means to prevent the terrorists and car bombs from entering into their district as a kind of protection that the Iraqi Government couldn’t provide.
http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/iraq/
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