I spent three weeks with the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team in the Dora and West Rasheed districts of Baghdad.

Like Ramadi is different from Al Karmah, each Mahala in Baghdad is different from the one next to it.

The faith of the soldiers is on display everywhere.

In South Dora the Sunni areas are filled with trash and sewage while the Shia areas are clean and have commercial activity.

In West Rasheed the Sunni areas are clean and the Shia areas are strewn with trash.  In some Shia Mahalas standing sewage and storm water is so deep the soldiers have taken to calling the neighborhood Hell's Venice.

A slice of civility  Even in the most violence wracked Mahalas, the insides of the courtyards are filled with flowers, shrubs and grass lawns.  Outside is trash and sewage, but inside the courtyard is a different world.

I grew up watching TV news reports of the civil war in Lebanon, watching the sects shell each other with howitzers.

The Iraqis will lob mortars at each other and shoot at each other but they don't appear to have the gumption to fight an all out civil war.

The mortars are lobbed randomly into Sunni or Shia neighborhoods.  The teenage death squad leaders grab targets of opportunity.  Bloody hand prints are left behind.

Sgt. James Sutton, a combat medic with Battle Company, 1-28, treats an Iraqi man with shrapnel wounds from a 60mm mortar.

In some of the Mahalas the evidence of better times in the past is clear.

Some exterior shrubs are still sculpted like animals.  Signs of businesses, the remnants of of neon tubes.  It wasn't always like this and this was manufactured by men with selfish ideals.

Bitching Camero  An IROC Z-28 convertible, leather interior, low miles. A little old Sunni lady just used it to drive to Mosque on Fridays.

In many areas it is common to find Shia living next door to Sunni.  They have lived next door to each other for decades, their children grew up together.  No one went to mosque.

At the micro level, these neighbors do not hate each other.  At the macro level they distrust those of another sect they do not know personally.

In some areas, Shia live next door to Sunni, who live next door to Kurd who live next door to Catholic.  A Shia will often take care of the home of a Sunni neighbor who has fled the teenaged death squads.

Still living in Baghdad, this family has not fled the community it lives in. Shia and Sunni live on both sides of the home.

Some people forget that the sectarian violence kicked off in 2005 as part a deliberate strategy by AQIZ.  Too many people assume that Sunni and Shia in Iraq have been killing each other for centuries.

The war in Iraq is plagued by a Congress who lacks the information to cast a vote and a public who lacks the basic knowledge to take part in an opinion poll.

Happier times  The family photos on walls show a time when women in Baghdad dressed like women in Europe.  That was before AQIZ and JAM began their campaigns for power and control.

Baghdad is the most dangerous city in the world--with Mexico City, Sao Paulo and Rio distant runners up.

The teenaged murders of JAM, wearing their euro-soccer warm ups and driving late model BMWs are one half hip-hop gangster one half child soldiers of Sierra Leon.

Soldiers from 1/4 Cav. Ft. Riley engage a concealed gunman during a clearing and disruption mission.

Is there hope for Baghdad?  Yes.  The additional U.S. forces from the surge are already showing limited signs of success.  They are not the signs quantified by London or D.C. think tanks.

Every Battalion Commander I talked with gave me the same metrics to measure success--Commerce, people returning to their homes, essential services, kids playing soccer in fields they haven't played on in 2 years, professionalization of the police and security services.

Those are things that do not fit well in an index and things a person can only see on the ground by going back to the same areas of operation every few months.

Which is why I will be back in Dora and West Rasheed in a few months.

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