Perspective: For Stryker troops, a deadly hurdle

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A mock bumper sticker affixed to a door in the headquarters building of a U.S. outpost in eastern Baghdad proclaims "I Love Sadr City." Soldiers smile when they see it. They know the opposite is true.

Sadr City could prove the toughest nut to crack as the Bush administration appears ready to send thousands more soldiers to the capital to have a fresh run at pacifying the capital, where insurgent and militia violence has raged for months.

And as President Bush readied his Wednesday night speech on a new Iraq strategy, many soldiers wondered whether their day-to-day missions were worth the risks.

"Every day we have a mission, but it's hard to see how that helps accomplish what we came here to do, how it fits into the big picture," said Sgt. James Simons, 24, of Tacoma, a soldier in the 5th Battalion's Company A, of the 20th Infantry Regiment.

During one tense mission recently, U.S. Army soldiers rolled up to the edge of the Shiite slum in hulking Stryker armored vehicles. They never set foot inside, but they still got a sharp reaction.

A burst of gunfire rang out moments after soldiers got out, prompting one squad to take cover in the home of an unemployed man named Abdul-Kareem Hassan Dhamin.

More shooting followed, but then, just as suddenly, it stopped.

Residents, accustomed to darting indoors during bursts of gunfire, peeked out and re-emerged. A line formed at a bread shop, and women with laundry baskets on their shoulders walked down the street. A man herded goats through a vacant lot strewn with trash.

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