Fighting Words

Last December, a verbal skirmish erupted between the Army and the Marine Corps. As Marines were preparing for deployment to Iraq in March to relieve soldiers who had been there for nearly a year, Marine commanders said they would be taking a different (read: "more effective") approach to security than the Army was then taking in the Sunni Triangle. The stronghold of Saddam loyalists north and west of Baghdad has shown itself impervious to America's good intentions.

Most soldiers concede there is room for improvement in just about any military operation, but the public criticism of the Army's approach was offensive to many. "God bless the United States Marine Corps, but if they think they know how to handle the Sunni Triangle based on their experience in the South they are mistaken," said one Army officer in Baghdad. Until then, the Marines' experience in Iraq had been largely confined to southern Iraq, where the overthrow of Saddam was a welcome event.