Soldier: It's just another day in Iraq

Soldiers raiding a town felt like the Grinch and called target 'Whoville.'
BEIJI, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. Army soldiers carried out raids in dusty Iraqi towns. Military doctors treated soldiers wounded by roadside bombs. Christmas in Iraq was just another day on the front lines for the U.S. military.
Troops woke long before sunrise on a cold, rainy Christmas morning to raid an upscale neighborhood a few miles from their base. In honor of the day, they dubbed the target "Whoville," after the town in the Dr. Seuss book "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
Commanders said they ordered the operation because they did not know the identities of the neighborhood's residents and several roadside bombs had recently been planted near the district, which isn't far from Forward Operating Base Summerall in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad.
U.S. patrols had never before ventured into the neighborhood, where the streets are lined with spacious homes.
Feeling unwelcome
Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade knew they weren't going to be welcome when they arrived in the dead of night. It just made sense to nickname the target after the village raided by Seuss' Grinch on Christmas morning, they said.
"It was appropriate. I did feel like the Grinch," said Pfc. John Parkes, 31, of Cortland, N.Y., a medic in one of several groups called "quick reaction teams" that respond to roadside explosions.
The raiders broke down doors, confiscated illegal machine guns, plastic bags of ammunition and gun clips. Iraqi law allows households to own AK-47s, but with limitations.
For many soldiers in the 101st, it was their second Christmas in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The brigade, known as "Rakkasans," also raided a village on Thanksgiving morning this year.
For many soldiers, the holidays are more of a benchmark for their time in Iraq than a special day.
"Believe it or not, I didn't realize it was Christmas until last night," said 1st Sgt. Andre Johnson, 38, of Baton Rouge, La. "It's just another day, man."
Violence resumes
A rash of roadside bombings and shootings and a series of bitter demonstrations across Iraq on Sunday ended a relatively peaceful stretch since parliamentary elections a week and a half ago.
In the capital city, insurgents set an American tank ablaze, causing an undisclosed number of casualties, and elsewhere in the country explosions and assassinations killed Iraqi civilians and security forces.
The violence comes after more than a week of discontent and acrimony among some voters over the preliminary results of the Dec. 15 balloting for the first permanent national government since the U.S.-led 2003 invasion.
Early on Christmas Day, an American tank hit a roadside bomb on a Baghdad highway, setting it ablaze, according to Iraqi officials. The U.S. military confirmed the report but would not release details on casualties. The U.S. military also announced that a soldier from Task Force Baghdad had died Sunday from injuries in a roadside bomb attack, and that, on Saturday, U.S. troops had shot and killed three gunmen who attacked a patrol near Ad Duluiyah, north of Baghdad.
Rumsfeld speaks
Meanwhile, at every stop on his three-day tour of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent a similar message: The U.S. military is not rushing to get out, but it is getting out, nevertheless.
In his public appearances with U.S. soldiers and commanders, as well as with Iraqi officials, Rumsfeld emphasized the positive -- an elected Iraqi government is being formed under a new constitution, and Iraq's own soldiers and police are shouldering more of the security duties.
In other words, the U.S. military is getting out.
That doesn't mean Rumsfeld believes the Iraqis are yet capable of making it on their own. There is still the potential for civil war, and a resilient and deadly insurgency is still alive. But it explains Rumsfeld's frequent assertion that success in Iraq will be decided by the Iraqis.
It also explains why Rumsfeld and his commanders are now scaling back the U.S. presence in Iraq by canceling the deployment of two Army brigades that had been scheduled to deploy in coming weeks. Fewer U.S. combat troops are needed because the Iraqis will be doing more of the fighting.
Depends on variables
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace said Sunday that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq could increase next year, not decrease, if the insurgency continues.
Pace's comments, on "Fox News Sunday," suggested that the Pentagon's plan to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, announced Friday by Rumsfeld, depended on several variables.
Pace, like Rumsfeld, said the military and the Bush administration have no specific target for how many troops to keep in Iraq now that the general elections are over.
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