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.

It looks like the ceasefire is off. After nearly seven months of standing down,  Shiite hardline fighters from Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army clashed with Iraqi security forces in Basra today. The reaction in Baghdad was almost immediate: the Green Zone was pounded with mortars or rockets throughout the day and at least one office of the rival Badr organization was torched. Clashes were also reported in Kut and a handful of smaller cities in the Shia-dominated south. By sundown, a curfew was in place in Basra, Kut, Hilla, Diwaniya and Sadr City to keep the violence from spreading.

The fighting comes as little surprise. For months, there has been a tense standoff in Basra between the Mahdi fighters loyal to cleric al-Sadr, the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq (ISCI) and the Fadhila party, an offshoot of the Sadrists. They have carefully carved out their turf: the Mahdi fighters have infiltrated the police force, the ISCI  Shiites control a handful of posts on the local governorate council and the Fadhila party holds the Basra governor post and dominates the security forces which protect the oil fields, Iraq's largest. There are nearly half a dozen smaller militant Shia groups, like Jundallah, who also claim influence in the city. In the past year, the tension between these groups has repeatedly spilled over to street violence. And, after British forces withdrew from their base within Basra last December, it was inevitable that the militias would clash with the Iraqi security forces who replaced them. The latest reports indicate that today's fighting has left at least 15 people dead and dozens more wounded.

Khalid Mohammed / AP
Attack Aftermath: Smoke rises from the Green Zone

By Larry Kaplow

One of the most visible improvements in the security situation here in recent months was the steep, almost total, decrease in insurgent rocket attacks. That lull has now been shattered. As Shiite militias appear be backsliding on a ceasefire dating back to last August, rocket attacks have resumed, taking a deadly and ominous toll.

Multiple rocket barrages reportedly killed about 13 Iraqis in the capital on Sunday—a day that saw an estimated 58 Iraqis and four U.S. soldiers die in a spate of attacks nationwide. The Baghdad rockets were apparently fired toward the Green Zone, which is headquarters for the Iraqi government, the U.S. military and the U.S. embassy. But many somehow fell short and landed in neighborhoods outside the fortified area, killing Iraqis. Inside, as the embassy alarm sounded, two U.S. government employees, including an American citizen and a Jordanian, were seriously wounded, while about six others received medical treatment for lighter wounds, according to an embassy official. He did not know if others not working for the United States were injured.

Rocket attacks are one form of lethal communications by Shiite hardliners; this time they may be signaling that supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr are ready to resume violence to gain more political power. If so, the prize at stake would be local elections expected much later this year. Most governorships and provincial councils in the south are now controlled by the Islamic Dawa Party or the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq (ISCI) simply because these two Shiite groups entered the political process early on. Since then Sadr has become a surging grass-roots phenomenon. His supporters are expected to win seats throughout the south if and when there is a vote. But they worry about the very real possibility that the government parties will stall or rig the elections. Worse, they fear that the government parties could be trying to smash the Sadr movement before the vote.

Those fears were likely strengthened by a series of recent government raids on Sadr offices in the south. The militias may be pushing back. It’s always murky trying to determine whether those fighting are doing so with Sadr’s blessing. But a local newspaper reported Sadr spokesmen threatening a “disobedience” campaign against raids by Iraqi and U.S. forces. That call was for peaceful protest—like closing shops—but in the past Sadr disputes with rival Shiites have seen increased rocket fire at U.S. installations, presumably because the United States is closely allied to the mainstream Shiites. When they fire at the Green Zone, they rattle both the U.S. and Iraqi governments.

 
Wathiq Khuzaie / Getty Images
Residue of Conflict: A bombed building in Baghdad

 He looked more than five years older, his face drawn and his once-considerable belly now barely noticeable. I think I was more thrilled to find him than he was to see me, there on the same street corner where we met in 2003 as American troops were pushing their way toward the capital from southern Iraq. But he did permit himself a crooked grin and to say, "I know you," in his stilted English as he turned toward me from the domino players on the little lip of sidewalk outside his small restaurant. The war years have been tough for Falah Hassan, and things are still too dangerous for an out-in-the-open talk with an American, so he led me back into his empty restaurant for a furtive chat.

The first time I met Hassan, I was talking to people on the street in central Baghdad about the approaching troops. He had joined in a group of men parroting the official line--that Iraq would turn back the invaders, that Saddam Hussein was a great patriot. I was with my Iraqi Ministry of Information minder at the time, and I remembered that Hassan had made a comment curiously open to double entendre, something like, "What else would we say?" About a week later, it was the morning of April 9, and U.S. troops were just outside the city, so close that the ubiquitous secret police were receding from the streets. I still had my minder but the minute Hassan saw me, he smiled and said he could finally speak freely. He told me that he had gone to jail years earlier for dodging the draft during the Iran-Iraq War and his brother had been killed by members of Saddam's extended family. The Marines hadn't set foot downtown yet, but it was at that moment that I knew the regime had truly fallen. I'd see him now and then as I passed his restaurant in my work. I ate there once or twice but then that got too dangerous for foreigners. I walked by one day and noticed him walking through his doorway with a Kalashnikov rifle--something that had become a fairly normal and legal tool of self defense for business owners.

At first glance on a sunny day, Yarmouk Hospital looks like any medical center in the Middle East. But that impression only lasted until a woman in an abaya approached U.S. Army Maj. Amit Bhavsar, the division surgeon of the Second Brigade, 101st Airborne. Bhavsar was in the Baghdad facility to deliver one of a series of talks that he has arranged on topics like facial trauma and burn treatment. But just before he reached the lecture room, the mother showed him her son, a 2-year-old with disfiguring burn scars all over his back, neck and scalp that were causing his hair to grow in uneven patches. She claimed the injury was the result of an unspecified military operation and she begged for Bhavsar's help in getting her child the necessary treatment and medicine. The doctors at the hospital were unable to offer him either.

Click here for rest of article

These three charts provided to NEWSWEEK by the military last week give a rough idea of how the violence in Iraq today compares to other times during the war. The military still does not attach figures to the charts but it is more forthcoming with comprehensive trends--released in close-to-real-time--than it used to be.

This chart shows that weekly attacks are in a low, nearly four-month plateau with fewer than 600 attacks of all kinds across the country per week. Attacks haven't been down at those levels for a sustained period since about spring 2005 (and they surpassed 1,500 attacks a week back in June of last year), according to the military's information.

This chart shows violent civilian deaths down in January to just above 500 a month, the lowest figure in about two years:

The third shows Iraqi security forces and U.S. military deaths per month--with an uptick for U.S. deaths in January while Iraqi deaths dropped:

Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims made the pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala this year to celebrate Arba'inya, the end of the 40-day mourning period following the anniversary of the death of Imam al-Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad. Despite tightened security measures, which included the deployment of 40,000 security personnel, a suicide bomber managed to kill 40 people in Iskandariyah on Feb. 24.  One of those taking part in the religious ritual, Jalal Abdul Aal, 41, who walked 70 miles from Baghdad with four friends, shared his recollections from the journey: 

This is the first time I've gone on foot to Arba'inya. I usually go by car, but this year was special. I wanted to challenge the Wahabi Sunnis, who have attacked pilgrims in the past. At 7 a.m. on Monday morning [Feb. 25], I left Baghdad with four of my friends, Musa, Ahmad, Muhammad and Basim. We took some bottles of water and carried the picture of the Imam, Al-Hussein, and two flags, one green and one black to honor him. There were thousands of pilgrims filling the streets toward Karbala, and tents set up everywhere along the road to feed us. Some handed out cans of Pepsi and slices of cake. Others prepared rice and soup for us to eat and tea and water to drink. I heard from those who walk on foot every year that it is a good idea to drink lots of water and tea and take [medicine] for headaches and ointment for your feet. Every couple of miles, we rested and prayed. Basim, who we call Mr. Funny, told lots of jokes.

It took us three days to reach Karbala. I was tired, but it was nothing compared to what our Imam did to save our religion. He is the symbol of sacrifice, and we need him now to save our country from these hard times. It was not easy for me to keep going, but if you saw those old people and kids walking with the souls of fighters to continue all the way to Karbala, you would feel the power inside you to do the same.

Atta Kenare / AFP-Getty Images

From Tehran to Baghdad: Ahmadinejad
will visit the Iraqi capital in March

So far U.S. officials say they won't be attending any events during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's planned visit to Baghdad March 2. And  the Iranian president might make it easy for them to avoid the awkwardness of bumping into each other in the Green Zone–-say, at an embassy "Salsa Night" or the "Liberty" pool. Iraqis planning the itinerary say that their guest has asked to stay outside the fortified area in a riverside compound belonging to his official host, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Ahmadinejad is expected to sleep over one night and hold meetings with Iraqi officials, maybe sign an agreement or two, and hold a joint press conference with Talabani. Naseer al-Ani, director of the Iraqi Presidency office (remember, there's a president and two vice-presidents from the different ethnic and religious factions) told NEWSWEEK the plan now is to not rely on any U.S. assistance for security or other logistics–-though that could change.

A U.S. Embassy official said that America will offer any logistical help the Iraqis request–-as the Americans have when other dignitaries have visited. Iran and Iraq share a long border and many common issues and interests, so the embassy is treating it as a routine summit between two heads of state–-though the other neighboring rulers haven't dropped by yet. Given that Iraq has traditionally had bitter relations with all its bordering nations–-Turkey is currently invading the north–-Iran is probably the friendliest neighbor to Iraq's Shiite-led government and its Kurds, if not for  its Sunni Arabs).

A remaining question is whether there are any guarantees that U.S. troops won't spoil the party by arresting Ahmadinejad–-as they have other Iranian diplomatic guests who they accused of funneling assistance to anti-American forces. Al-Ani, stunned  into momentary silence when asked about this, said, "I don't know what to say. It can't happen," Yeah, probably not. After all, the Iranian president has already visited New York for a United Nations summit and made it out safely. He should be able to thread his way through the western contractors and U.S. troops surrounding the Baghdad International Airport.