Citing successful operations in which American and Iraqi soldiers killed six terrorists and captured another 41 insurgents and death-squad suspects, the Iraqi government announced that the nightly curfew will be pushed back by two hours. Violence has not left Baghdad, but there are signs of marginal improvement.
Layla, a Kurdish woman who lives in Baghdad, said shops were beginning to reopen on the shell-pocked main street of her neighborhood, which once bustled with juice stands, coffee shops, hamburger restaurants and small kitchenware stores.
"They attacked [the Zayoona neighborhood] several times in the last three or four months, but now people feel safe enough to open their stores," she said.
It is "not exactly" safe to go to the market, she said. "You don't know who is going to kill you, or kidnap you."
While most Iraqis are withholding judgment on the security surge, a cross-section of women and men said the U.S. military was the only thing preventing complete chaos.
"If they retreat and leave everything to the Iraqis, at that time the civil war in Iraq will start," Hassan said.
This contradicts the conventional wisdom of our Democratic congressional majority who insist that civil war is in progress, which is the rationale behind their demands for retreat.
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