Transitional insecurity on Iraq's streets

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http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040621-041713-3890r

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 21 (UPI) -- "No, we can't do it here, we were here last week for two hours and only found two pistols," Sgt. Joe Ashcraft, a military policeman with the Army's 1st Cavalry Division tells the Iraqi Police captain through a translator.

"Now take us somewhere we can find guns," he adds. snip

"What are these guys afraid of? We have more firepower with us than an infantry platoon," Ashcraft says pointing at the four armored Humvees and their top-mounted heavy machine guns. "We need to get into a tough neighborhood and find some guns in cars. These guys don't want to work."

It is 110 degrees and everyone is hot and irritable, and the MPs are frustrated as the convoy of Humvees and two Iraqi Police pickup trucks drives around the al-Amil and al-Jihad neighborhoods.

At one intersection, the group prepares to stop traffic, when the Iraqi police commander decides to switch to another street less than a mile away. As everyone climbs into their vehicles, one Iraqi quietly confides to a journalist, "this place is very dangerous. If we stop here, the mujahedin (resistance fighters) will shoot at us."

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