Iraqi Factions Take Aim At Each Other

As U.S. Troops Leave Balad, Replacements Face Iraqi Security Forces No One Trusts

(CBS)  From the moment the Wolf Company arrives at a house searching for gunmen who have just attacked Iraqi police, the women hysterically protest the innocence of their men. An interpreter says the women claim a Shiite militia just attacked them, but 29-year-old Capt. Keith Carter isn't buying it, CBS News Chief Foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports.

"It's like talking to Americans for dummies," says Carter, with the 1-8 infantry regiment. "They're just telling us what they think we want to hear."

Lieut. Kirk Bailey knows they have to show who's in charge. But after a year in Iraq, they are experienced enough to show their humanity, too.

Bailey says Iraqis know keeping quiet is their best option.

"Dude, there was a round in the chamber and it was hot. C'mon, dude leaned right up against the window sill right next to your bed, how do you explain it?," Bailey asks a suspect.

Since the gunmen have fled and none of these men show up on the U.S. wanted list, the U.S. soldiers have to let them go.

For a change, it's not the Americans under fire in Balad. During last week's outbreak of all-out war, it was the city's two main ethnic groups who were killing each other, says Lieut. Col. Jeffrey Martindale.

That conflict, between Sunnis and Shiites, is simmering — and Martindale says that with U.S. troop cuts in Balad, it's going to get worse.

"If the government doesn't do anything to prevent it, they'll have a civil war," Martindale says.

Stopping that is a hard job for the Iraqi police captain whose mainly Shiite town is completely surrounded by Sunni neighborhoods.

"If the Americans leave, it will be all-out war again," he says through a translator.

Ironically, that captain's natural enemy, the area's most powerful Sunni sheik, agrees.

"The difficult part is extracting ourselves from what we've helped create," Martindale says.

Martindale and his men are leaving. Their replacements are facing a town on the edge, with Iraqi security forces no one trusts.

[patric6680]

Katie, I enjoy watching you on the CBS Evening News. The story done on Iraqi Sectarian Violence bothered me though.
I have a son in the Army and I do not want to see one more service man or woman killed trying to keep the Iraqi's from killing each other.
I say let them go. When it is all over only the people that want to live will be there to make a government.
I know it sounds cold but these people, like many in the region, have been fighting for a thousand years. We are not going to stop them.
In addition, while I do not like being there we need to support our troops 100% Thank you.

[berniesenn]

Circling the wagons was the defense for settlers moving westward. In the seventies and eighties, it was the iron curtain that was between the communists and the yankees. Today, it should be a holy wall between the Shiites and Sunnies. Partition the country among the sunnies, shiites and, Kurds. Move everyone willing to move and have three states under one national government. Sound familiar? If nothing else it should at least stop the killing...