On the Ground With U.S. Troops in Sadr City

Sadr City, the oppressively poor Shiite neighborhood on the north end of Baghdad, is now the front line in the fight create security in the Iraqi capital.


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U.S. servicemen killed by rocket fire in heavily defended area.
Since September, U.S. troops have been operating together with Iraqi police out of a heavily guarded Joint Security Station on the southern border of Sadr City. In the last two weeks they have started moving north.
About a thousand U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are moving house to house, street by street northward into Sadr City in some of the toughest urban fighting U.S. troops have seen in Iraq.
"In this area there are some real knuckleheads that just want to shoot at Americans," Command Sgt.-Maj. Michael Boom said.
Despite the fierce resistance and the tough conditions they are facing, U.S. troops are giving no ground.
As U.S. troops make progress, Boom said, "they are living in abandoned buildings."
The 50-year-old officer from Sacramento, Calif., admitted he might be too old for this sort of fighting.