CAMP LIBERTY, Baghdad -- I’ve heard some readers call for more positive news from the war in Iraq.

My approach to this assignment is to do what one soldier recommended just as Tony and I were getting on a Stryker for a mission into Baghdad.

“Just tell it like you see it,” he said.

What I’ve seen so far is Fort Lewis soldiers working very hard in an extremely difficult environment.

They are risking their lives and learning quickly who the local leaders are and how to work with them to try and get things done. One soldier described the effort in Baghdad as trying to change a tire on a truck that is going down the highway at 60 miles an hour.

Lt. Col. Avanulas Smiley, commander of the Tomahawk battalion from Fort Lewis, believes that his men are making progress in Baghdad. His soldiers have gone door to door seizing weapons and searching for insurgents. Now they are trying to help facilitate neighborhood trash pickup and sewage projects. Maybe the most important effort is the ongoing attempt to get the Iraqi security forces able to stand on their own two feet.

Smiley is under no illusions about the nature of the challenge. The Americans are attempting to overcome generations of hate and fear in Iraq.
Is this positive news? I don’t know. It is what it is.

-- Sean Cockerham