What would you tell an Iraqi who asks you if they should uproot their entire family and move to the United States?

That's the question facing us in NEWSWEEK's Baghdad bureau as we explain a new U.S. immigration program aimed at giving safe haven to Iraqis who have risked working with Americans. After years of pleading--often from high-ranking U.S. officials concerned for their interpreters--it will now be easier for Iraqis endangered by their links to Americans to immigrate with their families. The program applies to Iraqis working for the U.S. military, embassy, contractors or media.

Their perils are obvious. NEWSWEEK wrote last year about a married couple who worked for the U.S. embassy and was murdered. The news of the new rules has created a buzz within the media ranks, with translators, drivers, guards and house staff weighing whether to send away for the online application.

By Larry Kaplow

The terrible bombing in northern Baghdad Tuesday, which reportedly killed at least 50 people in a crowded afternoon market, highlights both the ongoing dangers here and the shifting security geography of the capital.

The Hurriyah (Freedom) neighborhood where the bombing happened is a predominantly Shiite area and is the typical target chosen by Al Qaida in Iraq. That Sunni Muslim group, made mainly of Iraqis, apparently aims to fan the fires of civil strife, in effect provoking Shiite militias into retaliatory strikes that will drive more Sunnis to their cause. U.S. officials have cautiously said that Al Qaida in Iraq has been greatly weakened and Iraqi officials have boasted that it is all but finished. But a string of bombings has occurred in Baghdad and other cities since the start of U.S. and Iraqi raids against Al Qaida targets in the northern city of Mosul a couple weeks ago. This was just the biggest death toll – since March, in fact. Al Qaida still maintains the strength for regular strikes.

The capital remains an unstable patchwork of dangers and safe havens - though much better than last year. This morning I came back from an interview in downtown Baghdad via Haifa Street. A year or so ago, that would have been unthinkable as the avenue of boxy, modern apartment buildings had been used off and on as an insurgent staging area.  Today, Haifa Street was safe and looked rather tidy and healthy. The nearby Allawi neighborhood, once crime-infested, was also safely passable if still a collection of dilapidated storefronts and workshops.

A senior U.S. Administration  official briefed reporters today about the situation in Iraq and applied a spin heavier than any I've heard in Baghdad for a long time. True, security is much better in Iraq today than it was several months ago but this official went beyond what even military leaders would claim. In the meeting, held on the usual (but irritating) diplomatic ground rules that he/she not be identified by name, a reporter asked about the Iraqi government's ability to take advantage of the recent "lull in violence." The official jumped on the phrasing.

"This is not a, quote, lull in violence," the official insisted. "It is a steady decline, which one could track, plot on a graf, which I know  [ military spokesman]  Kevin Bergner has and you've probably seen, starting in December 2006 and projecting in virtually a straight, leveled averaged line down to this week in Iraq."

The official didn't stop there: "That's not a lull. That is a continuous decline in every metric of violence. Where spikes have occurred, those spikes have been related to developments on the ground, often to security advances or, in the negative sense, to a particularly spectacular Al Qaeda attacks. But the trend line has been, based on the plots I've seen, unaffected by that. It ain't a lull. It is a progressive decline that is now some 17 months in duration."

With the end of the intense fighting between Shiite militias and U.S. and Iraqi troops, violence has dropped significantly,  according to military statistics. Here's another look at the trends in one of the charts released by the military that we've been posting on Checkpoint Baghdad. The chart runs through the start of May. U.S. officials said over the weekend that there were only about 325 attacks for the week ending May 23 (not on the chart), which would make the lowest weekly figure since March, 2004, when there were about 330 attacks.

The figures coincide with anecdotal evidence around Baghdad. Iraq is still volatile and violent but Iraqis in many neighborhoods say the last couple weeks have been quiet, even to the point in which there is anecdotal evidence of more displaced people attempting to return to neighborhoods from which they fled or were forced. A look at the chart shows that bloodshed can skyrocket or drop from quickly from week to week, but the month of May has been better than most.

Violence in Iraq
Military statistics reflect the pattern of attacks in the country

 By Lennox Samuels

The young man in the gauzy yellow jumpsuit sits motionless in a reclining chair at the edge of the ward, his knees drawn up in a near-fetal position. His face is puffy from his wounds and he exhibits the stillness of someone who is blind. Indeed, the thick white bandage over his eyes seems to confirm that he is. But a second look takes in a light-brown leather strap that tethers him to the chair, and an American military officer confirms that he is a detainee. There’s nothing wrong with his eyes. The oversized bandage is there to make sure he won’t be able to identify anyone after he is released.

Apprehended because of his actions fighting Coalition forces in Iraq (Only captured or suspected insurgents face such restrictions), the man is a patient at the U.S. Air Force Theater Hospital at Balad Air Base. He is an emblem of the facility’s policy of treating anyone, friend or foe, who arrives there needing medical help. The care is world-class at the hospital, which is renowned for its trauma treatment and the skill of its doctors. "For us, if you’re a military physician and come to Iraq and practice medicine, this is the Super Bowl,” says Colonel Patrick R. Storms, commander of the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group and the hospital’s boss. A soldier brought to Balad, however badly injured, has a 99 percent chance of surviving. The one percent who die essentially are beyond saving because they have suffered extreme traumas such as loss of brain substance. The survival rate for Iraqi patients is 91 percent; they don't do quite as well as the Americans because they lack the soldiers' protective gear and are unable to heal as quickly since their bodies are often not as well nourished.

Saving lives is a reversal of roles in the building, which had a far more sinister function during the Saddam Hussein regime. “There used to be torture chambers in the basement, which boggled my mind,” Storms says. “Now the place looks a lot like a hospital. We’ve kind of lost that MASH feel.” Like the surgical hospital in the classic TV medical drama, the Air Force facility used to be housed in tents. Now it is in a 63,000-square-foot building outfitted with an overhead mortar protection field – a wise addition in this area, 42 miles north of Baghdad, where Iraqi militants regularly fire rockets and mortar onto the sprawling base. The patients, about half of whom are Iraqi and half American, are in the hands of a staff of 380, among them 17 surgeons. Not surprisingly in a war zone, the hospital’s priorities are to save lives and clear beds. American patients stay a little more than a day, on average. “It is not unusual for someone to be in Walter Reed within 72 hours of his injury,” says Storms, referring to the Army medical center in Washington. Iraqis typically are discharged after about six days.

Many hospitals in the United States treat perhaps three or four trauma patients a month. Balad handles 246 monthly, with 150 evaluated for traumatic brain injuries, from admissions totaling 500. “Traumatic brain injuries are the signature injury of this war,” Storms says. With suicide vests and IEDS now the favorite weapons of Iraq’s insurgents, he and his team are seeing more and more patients with a combination of blast and burn injuries. “There’s no parallel stateside,” he says. “We’re talking about blast, burns, penetrating injuries.” Among the worst cases he’s seen is one in which 23 car bombing victims were brought in; 22 had life-threatening injuries. Storms says 8 to 12 percent of admissions are children. “The injuries have been horrific, devastating. Monstrous stuff, like some sniper shooting a child through a window just because they can.” Further, he says, while a doctor in the U.S. might remove one or two eyes in his career, Balad physicians extract about 70 damaged eyes in each 120-day rotation. Reservists Lt. Colonel Peter Sorini and Lt. Colonel Jim Budny are among the doctors on the current rotation. Both are struck by the severity of the trauma cases. In the U.S., trauma injuries tend to be related to events like car accidents. “It’s the depth and breadth of the injuries you see here that’s different from back home. I don’t think I saw a penetrating wound to the head in Montana in 10 days. Here you see them every day,” says Sorini, of Butte. “The big question to me is what kind of person would do this to another person,” adds Budny, of Buffalo, N.Y. “There’s no limit to their cruelty.” On a light day, surgeons at the Balad hospital log a total of around 20 hours in the operating room. A heavy day pushes that number to 80 hours. Storms says he has jammed as many as 21 patients into the emergency room at the same time, in “a ballet of chaos.” Even with that many people, he strives to keep the place clean, making sure no blood or drip accumulates on the floor “so the next casualty coming in has no idea there were casualties before. That’s good for morale. “

The hospital was completed last July, with the medical staff working through construction. “We didn’t say 'stop the battle,'” says Storms, a doctor of gastroenterology and aerospace medicine. The hospital is known for neurosurgery; treating head and neck as well as ear, nose and throat cases; and for oral and face reconstruction. It also handles general surgery, internal medicine and a range of other maladies. But it is best know for its trauma work. Most trauma patients arrive by helicopter and are on an operating table within 30 minutes. Wounded troops are rushed from the landing pad to the OR, passing along “Heroes Highway” through a tent whose ceiling is a large American flag. “They’re on their backs and they look up and see the flag and know they’re in good hands,” Storms explains.

In the intensive care unit, a GI sleeps in a bed, recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest. An Iraqi man in his 30s is in isolation, injured in his stomach and arm by an IED. A one-year-old Iraqi boy is receiving a skin graft, his donor arm still attached to his face. He bit into an electrical cord and was grievously injured. Capt. Brian Caldwell, of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, lies in a bed nearby, awake but slightly groggy. He had been walking at Forward Operating Base Warhorse when an IED exploded. “They threw me in a vehicle and brought me here,” he says. “All I remember is reading the word ‘Phillips’ – on some kind of CAT Scan.” Caldwell appears to have been lucky. He is being evaluated for a concussion and depending on how he responds, will be sent either to Germany for further treatment or back to his unit in Iraq.

Down the ward from Caldwell, a few curtained partitions over, the Iraqi detainee doesn’t stir. People walk to and fro, paying him little attention. “Insurgents flow through from time to time,” says Captain Brian Caruthers, the hospital’s executive officer. “It’s great to patch them up. They’re actually vital, in a way, because we get a lot of information from them that helps the war effort.” Just so they don’t expect to see their surroundings, or anyone in them.

Residents of Baghdad’s Green Zone who have had to keep wads of cash on hand and listen to the grumbling of Iraqi staff unhappy to be paid with wrinkled American dollars are getting some relief. The zone’s first real commercial bank is open for business: A branch of the Iraqi chain, Warka Bank, is now offering a range of services including savings, checking, Visa credit cards, ATM facilities, even online and mobile-phone banking. External wire transfers are available, at a cost of $50. Dollar savings accounts earn 4 percent a year. Certificates of deposit earn 4.5 to 5.5 percent on U.S. dollars and 12 to 14 percent on Iraqi dinars, depending on duration.

The branch is set up in a converted former residence, conveniently--or perhaps strategically--located down the street from the Karadat Maryam police station and inevitably, hidden behind a bank of high concrete barriers. “This place was in ruins and it took months to accomplish this,” says one of the managers, waving at the front office with its new computers and faux leather furniture. Asked if it had been difficult to get the venture going, another manager shrugs. “Everything in Iraq is complicated, even the weather,” he says.

Three years ago today, April 16, 2005, a suicide car bomber killed 28-year-old Marla Ruzicka and her colleague, Faiz Ali Salim, on the capital's airport road. It's worth noting this anniversary along with the others that recently marked the American invasion and fall of the Iraqi government five years ago.

Ruzicka founded and headed CIVIC – the Campaign for Innocent Victims In Conflict, which tries to hold governments accountable for compensating the victims of wars. Though she's often called an "aid" worker, she once corrected me on the label saying her group advocated for victims, bringing their suffering to the public, and did not provide direct aid. Much of her whole, short life had been as an advocate for various causes and her work in war showed how awareness, that overworked concept, can actually affect people lives.

Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP-Getty Images
Iraqi men work to extinguish a blaze said to have been caused by a
U.S. rocket attack in Sadr City on April 8, 2008

Why has Moqtada al-Sadr cancelled his planned “Million Person” march against the U.S. presence in Iraq? Anyone who sees it as a sign of declining tensions between the radical Shiite leader’s Mahdi army and the American and U.S. forces would be wrong.  Nor has al-Sadr’s decision to call off the April 9 protest done much to ease fears in a capital city that is still on the edge. The Iraqi government has ordered a curfew throughout Baghdad for Wednesday. Local residents hustled to buy bread and vegetables for what they fear could end up being an extended time indoors. In the Green Zone, the American Embassy told its staff to sleep in inside their large office building rather than risk rocket barrages in the flimsy trailers where they live.

Sadr’s protest plans are hardly new. The cleric calls annually for marches on April 9, the date in 2003 when U.S. troops drove into central Baghdad and the last vestiges of Saddam Hussein's regime dissolved. Typically, the demonstrations have had mixed success. They're always called with little time for preparation and have probably never reached a real million, in part because of active efforts to foil them. I remember walking in Firdos Square, where the Marines had yanked down the statue of Saddam, on the first anniversary in 2004. Sadr's Mahdi Army had just unleashed a violent uprising against American troops and was planning a march in the square. U.S. troops declared the area a closed "military zone," setting it off with barbed wire while a Humvee circled slowly, blaring heavy metal out of loudspeakers to the frustration of weary residents living along the route. Sadrists stayed away but their movement grew.

This time Sadr blamed interference as one of the reasons for canceling the demonstrations. In a statement Tuesday, he said government forces were blocking followers trying to get to Baghdad to join in. "The government is still under the occupation pressure and its deceiving policies, therefore it is trying to prevent the million-person annual demonstration," the statement read. He said he was calling off the march for the safety of his supporters. In fact, there have been three days of fighting in the stronghold of Sadr City and some of its entrances are blocked by wire and Iraqi security forces guard towers. He compared it to the way Saddam used to prevent movement. And, while calling off the march, he congratulated his supporters for their resistance: "Allah salutes your efforts, and jihad and resistance of the occupation who violated our lands and sanctities, killed our youth and elderly, bombed our cities and took over our territories." Late Tuesday, the government announced that the curfew would still allow for an anti-occupation rally in one square in Sadr City, providing a little relief valve--though the ban on vehicle movement will prevent many others from attending.

Sadr may be seeking to avoid, for now, clashes with security forces that would create the impression that his followers were at fault. Members of his Mahdi Army militia have just fought government forces to a draw in the southern port city of Basra. (The standoff prompted repeated questions from U.S. Senators grilling U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus in Washington on Tuesday.) But, as the cliché goes, Sadr knows he can win the battle and still lose the war. Each assertion of militia power also alienates conservative Shiite Muslims who look down on Sadr's movement as a power-crazed rabble. And the other Shiite parties in the government, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, seem to be unified among themselves and in an alliance with powerful Kurdish factions in standing up to Sadr. That has opened the door for the Iraqi and U.S. military to press into militia areas and provoked the recent fighting in Baghdad, killing scores and causing hundreds to flee Sadr City for safer neighborhoods.

Sadr knows he is in a long-term power struggle with fellow Shiites even as Shiites in general crave unity. While those fighting against his militia wear government uniforms, they are largely loyal to rival Shiite parties in alliance with Maliki. It's as much about politics and power as it is about law and order. Maliki has made an unprecedented call for Sadr to disband the militia or risk having his movement disqualified from the local elections later this year. As things stand now, Sadr's partisans are expected to do well and the rival parties are expected to lose seats in those elections, which might take place by December.

The prospect of winning a sweep of southern governorships is a goal Sadr wants to preserve and he has to make sure his militia is not seen as the aggressor in an intra-Shiite war. Instead of just rejecting the call to disband the Mehdi Army (and no one who wants to be a player in Iraq wants to disband his militia), he said he would consult with high religious authorities who are backed by all the Shiites. Those consultations might go better for Sadr if the militia is not seen causing trouble in the streets. In the meantime, he threatens to end the general ceasefire he called for his militia to follow since August. So a pronouncement calling off the march will help him look like a peacemaker even if he's not ready to put down the guns.

There's one less player now on the chaotic streets of Basra, where the Iraqi government and contending parties and gangs are scrapping for control of Iraq's oil-rich second city. Reports have emerged in the last couple of days that government forces have detained Yussef al-Mussawi, leader of a shadowy fundamentalist group, Thar-Allah–"God's Revenge." Newsweek wrote about Mussawi last October, describing how local warlords exert more authority than the central government. He worked from a compound on the edge of the city, surrounded by his heavily armed aides.

Government officials say he is behind a string of assassinations, including the killings of professionals and women, the latter apparently because they were not maintaining strict codes for modest dress and behavior. They also accuse Mussawi of ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. But some see the recent wave of arrests as an attempt by leading government Shiite parties to neutralize Shiite rivals.

credit: Larry Kaplow

Iraqis still nostalgic for Saddam Hussein--and you find them fairly often--have a secret way to sneak a peak at the old dictator. Cheap cigarette lighters on sale in his hometown Tikrit, apparently just in the last few months, have small flashlight projectors in the end that illuminate the leader in his classic poses. Point it toward a wall or the ground and you can see the strongman in his heyday, firing a pistol.

Stall owners selling the items say they come from "China," which could mean from anywhere in Asia. More innocuous models offer pictures of Iraqi soccer heroes.