Perspective: Looking The Other Way

Captain Adam Grim readies his men for a nighttime raid in Mekanik, a gritty neighborhood in southern Baghdad. The target: a suspected militia safe house. Grim's platoon won't be leading the raid, however. Instead, the Americans will be supporting Iraqi forces led by a wiry police commander named Colonel Salih Hashim. Hashim knows the neighborhood well and chose the target himself. Together the two men discuss the plan one last time. Hashim and his men will storm the house while Grim's platoon secures the street outside and provides cover.

The raid should be a model of U.S.-Iraqi cooperation, capturing bad guys while building the confidence and skills of the Iraqi police. But there's a problem. Grim has reason to believe that in the daily struggle between U.S. forces and the armed Shi'ite groups suspected of carrying out most of the executions in the area, Hashim "plays both sides." Grim certainly doesn't trust Hashim and suspects him, at the very least, of giving ammunition to Shi'ite gunmen and sometimes even letting them sleep in the same Iraqi police compound where U.S. troops meet with Hashim during the day.

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