American soldiers are demonstrating how to "win the battle while losing the war".

In a series of military operations last year, American marines rolled into a number of those cities in search of insurgents, only to find that the guerrillas had often melted away. When the marines moved on, the insurgents often returned.

One thing that seemed clear on Monday was that however small the numbers of Iraqi soldiers were, their presence was far more palatable to local residents than that of the Americans. Iraqi soldiers passed out a letter, written in unvarnished Arabic prose by Colonel Raad, to the "noble people" of the neighborhood, apologizing up front for the distress he and his men would cause.

"Military necessity will force us to do things we don't want to do," he wrote, "but what we have to do for the sake of your freedom, so you won't live in fear for the rest of your life."

"It is my foremost intention to bring peace to you," he continued. "We will stay until the job is complete, until your children can play without fear and your families can walk through the streets with honor."

One of the actions undertaken by the Americans and Iraqis was the expulsion of about 50 Iraqis from a three-block area where the new outpost was being set up. The Iraqi civilians were told to gather their things and go — where to was not clear. The troops assumed that the local Iraqis, in this land linked by bloodlines, would be able to flee to their relatives. They promised compensation. The Iraqis wandered off into the streets, some of them carrying food and clothing.

Saif al-Dulaimi, one of the expelled Iraqi men, expressed anger and suspicion toward the American soldiers, asserting, for instance, that they intended to stay in Iraq forever. Yet for the Iraqi soldiers walking alongside the Americans, Mr. Dulaimi offered a different opinion.
"They are O.K.," he said, pausing in his journey. "They are respectable."

Asked where he would go, he said: "I don't know. I don't want money. I want my home."

Telling these people that they are bing uprooted from their homes "for their own protection" is not going to fly when the Iraqi's well know that the reason that they are in any danger at all is because of the American military presence in their country.

And this offer to pay them to vacate their homes must appear to them to just add insult to their injury. I believe that in many cases these families have lived in these homes for generations.

But this next part of the story might be the most telling indication of all concerning the future of Iraq:

Colonel Raad is a Sunni, as are most of the Iraqi soldiers who made the trip with him. They seemed alert and disciplined as they moved about the area, in contrast to some Iraqi units that have accompanied American soldiers in the past.

He said many of the Iraqi soldiers who stayed behind feared they would create tribal vendettas if they came to Ramadi and killed other Iraqis.

"They said, 'We don't want fight our own people,' " he said.

This clearly shows that many of the Iraqi soldiers do not view these insurgents as the "enemy", they see them as fellow Iraqis. It is getting clearer and clearer that once the Americans are out of the picture that these people will be able to work out a compromise and run their country without "foreign" interference.

That is if there is not too much residual resentment left over from the time that these soldiers cooperated with the "American invaders".

The longer we stay the more damage we do to their chances of recovering from our occupation.