From: j.rennie1@ntlworld.com   
      
   For Richard, Jiggy and all those deluded Americans   
   who think that the war in Iraq was justified.   
      
      
   Frustrated Reservists See a Mission Impossible   
   By Anthony Shadid   
   Washington Post Foreign Service   
   Tuesday, July 1, 2003; Page A01   
      
      
   BAGHDAD, June 30 -- To Staff Sgt. Charles Pollard, the working-class suburb   
   of Mashtal is a "very, very, very, very bad neighborhood." And he sees just   
   one solution.   
      
   "U.S. officials need to get our [expletive] out of here," said the   
   43-year-old reservist from Pittsburgh, who arrived in Iraq with the 307th   
   Military Police Company on May 24. "I say that seriously. We have no   
   business being here. We will not change the culture they have in Iraq, in   
   Baghdad. Baghdad is so corrupted. All we are here is potential people to be   
   killed and sitting ducks."   
      
   To Sgt. Sami Jalil, a 14-year veteran of the local police force, the   
   Americans are to blame. He and his colleagues have no badges, no uniforms.   
   The soldiers don't trust them with weapons. In his eyes, his U.S.   
   counterparts have already lost the people's trust.   
      
   "We're facing the danger. We're in the front lines. We're taking all the   
   risks, only us," said the 33-year-old officer. "They're arrogant. They treat   
   all the people as if they're criminals."   
      
   These are the dog days of summer in Mashtal, and tempers are flaring along a   
   divide as wide as the temperatures are high.   
      
   Throughout the neighborhood, as in much of Baghdad, residents are almost   
   frantic in their complaints about basic needs that have gone unmet -- enough   
   electricity to keep food from spoiling, enough water to drink, enough   
   security on the streets. At Mashtal's Rashad police station, where Pollard's   
   unit is working to protect the police and get the Baath Party-era force back   
   on its feet, the frustrations are personal and professional.   
      
   Many of the Iraqi officers despise the U.S. soldiers for what they see as   
   unreasonable demands and a lack of respect. Many of the soldiers in   
   Pollard's unit -- homesick, frustrated and miserable in heat that soars well   
   into the 100s -- deem their mission to reconstitute the force impossible.   
      
   The Rashad station, where a new coat of paint has done little to conceal   
   unmet expectations, is an example of the darker side of the mundane details   
   of the U.S. occupation. While perhaps not representative, it offers a grim,   
   small window on the daunting task of rebuilding a capital and how the course   
   of that reconstruction, so far, has defied the expectations of virtually   
   everyone involved.   
      
   "I pray every day on the roof. I pray that we make it safe, that we make it   
   safe home," Pollard said. "The president needs to know it's in his hands,   
   and we all need to recognize this isn't our home, America is, and we just   
   pray that he does something about it."   
      
   Pollard is a 22-year veteran, and he had thought about retiring before his   
   Iraq tour. Now, he says, he doesn't know when he will return to his job at   
   the maintenance department at a community college in Pittsburgh, and that   
   uncertainty nags at him.   
      
   Asked when he wanted to leave, he was blunt: "As soon as we can get the hell   
   out of here."   
      
   This morning, in a dusty second-floor room with sandbags piled against the   
   windows, helmets hung on nails over flak jackets and a sprawling map of   
   Baghdad on the wall, Pollard's unit debated that question. Gossip swirled.   
      
   "There's a rumor going around that we'll be here for two years," Spec. Ron   
   Beach said.   
      
   Others rolled their eyes and shook their heads. "You can put me up in a   
   five-star hotel, and I'm not going to be here for two years," said Sgt.   
   Jennifer Appelbaum, 26, a legal secretary from Philadelphia.   
      
   They started talking about what they lacked: hot meals, air conditioners,   
   bathrooms a notch above plywood outhouses and something to do on their 12   
   hours off other than sweat. Electricity is on one hour, off five. Staff Sgt.   
   Kenneth Kaczmarek called his flak jacket an "Iraqi weight loss system" and   
   said he had shed at least 15 pounds. Pollard said he had lost 18.   
      
   Pollard's second granddaughter was born this month, but he hasn't been able   
   to call home to learn her name. Kaczmarek's daughter, Isabella Jolie, was   
   born May 28 -- eight days after he arrived in Iraq as part of an advance   
   team.   
      
   "It makes life miserable," Pollard said. "The morale, it's hard to stay high   
   with these problems."   
      
   Once largely undefended, Rashad police station -- 12 tiles missing from its   
   blue sign -- has taken on the look of a bunker. Two cream-colored, armored   
   Humvees are parked outside; another Humvee with a .50-caliber machine gun is   
   at the side. Pollard said he wants barbed wire strung atop the cinder-block   
   wall behind, and an engineering team is preparing to heighten the   
   brick-and-cement wall in front. In coming days, he said, he would put sand   
   barricades along the street outside the entrance.   
      
   Shots are fired every day at U.S. troops in Baghdad, and on Friday night, an   
   ambush on a military convoy down the road killed one soldier and left at   
   least one other wounded. As Pollard recalled, the blast shook the entire   
   block. He said he suspects everyone. Two Iraqi journalists, one with a   
   camera, visited two weeks ago, and he was convinced the men were casing the   
   station.   
      
   He once sat at a desk outside, then moved indoors. "Let the Iraqis guard the   
   gate," he said, next to a sandbagged window.   
      
   The way Pollard sees it, the Iraqi police should be taking the risks, not   
   his 13 reservists at the station.   
      
   "It's not fair to our troops to build a country that's not even ours and our   
   lives are at risk," he said. "They've got to take control. They may have to   
   kill some of their own people to make a statement that we're back in   
   control. No doubt."   
      
   For the most part, the Iraqi police and Pollard's soldiers say little to   
   each other -- and even then it's done through interpreters. The Iraqis   
   dislike Pollard, and he has little regard for them. The neighborhood is   
   dangerous, he said, and fighting crime here might require twice the 86   
   police officers they still have. But of the 86, he said, at least half   
   should be dismissed for corruption or ineptitude.   
      
   "This is a crooked cop sitting here," he said, pointing to a major who   
   didn't understand English.   
      
   He walked through the station, leaning into a room with two officers busy at   
   a desk. "Here's a room where they're acting like they're doing real   
   important paperwork," he said. He walked outside to a balcony where three   
   officers were sitting on newspapers and a green burlap sack, one with his   
   shoes off. "This is a couple more lazy cops, sitting down when they should   
   be outside," he said. They all greeted Pollard with cold stares, forgoing   
   the traditional greetings that are almost obligatory in their culture.   
      
   Near an iron gate, where residents gathered in hopes of filing a complaint,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)