Lull in fighting lets soldiers resume effort to help fix infrastructure

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Lull in fighting lets soldiers resume effort to help fix infrastructure
By Michael Gisick, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, May 29, 2008

BAGHDAD — Out the window to the left, a young man reaches into a barrel and splashes water over his head, momentary relief from the 105-degree heat of midday. It might seem like a nice idea, except that the barrel is filled by a tube stuck in the bright green water of a nearby canal, which looks and smells exactly like what it is: an open sewer.

When Sgt. 1st Class John Hipolito’s unit arrived in eastern Baghdad in December, a lot of the focus went toward trying to fix the woeful situation with the water and sewer, and the electricity.

"But then we got to March and everything went crazy," he says. "Now we have to start over."

Fighting between U.S.-Iraqi forces and Shiite militiamen has largely receded here in the past week or two, though commanders remain focused on a few pockets of resistance. Attention is only beginning to shift back toward that earlier battle against sewage, dirty water and spotty power.

But even as U.S. units are intent to push their Iraqi counterparts to the front of the fight against the militiamen, they are increasingly inclined toward the view that problems with basic infrastructure are also best handled by the Iraqis.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=55166