Perspective: In Baghdad, a Flimsy Outpost

Gen. David Petraeus, top commander in Iraq, visits Joint Security Station Mansour on March 28 to check the progress on fortifying the former gymnasium

The soldiers crept into the abandoned gymnasium shortly before midnight.

Flashlights provided the only light. Commanders whispered their orders.

A few dozen of the additional U.S. troops President Bush has sent to Iraq were moving in with utmost stealth to set up a small combat outpost in western Baghdad.

"Within 72 hours there's going to be some form of attack," Maj. Erik Overby, one of their commanders, had predicted hours earlier as the soldiers readied their long convoy of armored trucks and vehicles to head to a neighborhood called Amel. When its residents wake up, he'd said, "they're going to realize an American Army unit has moved in."

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