Perspective: Baghdad residents finding little security in the security 'crackdown'

BAGHDAD — Mohammed Azzawi, his brother and a friend faced a bedeviling choice as they neared their home in one of Baghdad's deadliest neighborhoods: They could take a road recently closed by U.S. troops where motorists jump the curb and drive on the sidewalk, or an open route haunted by abductions and killings.

It is the sort of dilemma Iraqis encounter every day as they navigate a city with increasing numbers of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, but still dominated by danger and uncertainty.

More than two months after the United States and Iraq launched a new plan to stanch the capital's violence, life for residents has become a game of choices dictated by concrete barriers, traffic-choking checkpoints and the latest market bombing.

Read the rest at the LA Times