Tony Blair insists Iraq is getting better ... but there�s little evidence of that on the ground.
Report by Foreign Editor David Pratt on the front line

Inbound ...

WHEN Sergeant Lucas T White was blown up,his buddies reckoned that the heat from the blast was as high as 3000C. "I'm telling you man, it's the way they make them," one of them tells me as we crouch behind the cover of a garden wall, hopefully out of harm's way from insurgent sniper fire.

The young infantryman is tall and gangly, but the name-tag sewn onto his fatigues - rather ironically - identifies him as Private Little.

It's early morning and we are in a rainy street in Baghdad's Mansour district during a "shakedown" operation looking for guns, bombs and "bad guys".

Pte Little is drawing heavily on a Lucky Strike, and from somewhere in the distance there is that distinctive flat pop-pop-pop sound that any in-country veteran infantryman recognises as the sound of Kalashnikov fire.

"A f***ing EFP man," Little continues, describing how the explosive-formed projectile-the deadliest of roadside bombs - blasted into Sgt Lucas's Stryker armoured vehicle.

"Motherf***ing thing looks just like some big copper ashtray, but heats up on detonation and goes straight through the armour like a hot knife through butter. There's tanks been hit by them that's been taken out.

"It blew in, hit Lucas in the side and in his face," Little continues, now in full flow. Then he pauses, as if suddenly seeing Lucas in his mind's eye.

Sgt Lucas T White was a 28-year-old Native American, and a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon. Perhaps that was where his love of the outdoor life came from.

As a kid, he is said to have been an energetic youngster who enjoyed playing with toy soldiers and digging foxholes in the wheat fields near his home. Later he developed a passion for salmon fishing, snowboarding and camping.

But all that was before he left his wife Jennifer at home in Moses Lake, Washington, in 2001 to enlist in the US army's war on terror.

Then, in November last year, he and his unit were ambushed by Iraqi insurgents in a Ghazaliya street in the badlands of Baghdad, neighbourhoods so brutal and devastated they turn to black and white in your head almost the moment you leave them.

It has been six long months since Sgt Lucas died. His passing, along with the Bronze Star he had been awarded, is now remembered only by his remaining family, a white headstone in the Arlington National Cemetery, and the inscription on a bracelet Pte Little rolls up his sleeve to show me.

"He was a cool guy, a good NCO, but shit happens man," says Little with a shrug. How right he is. Having been to Baghdad before, I know from experience that here, shit happens with a near monotonous, if terrifying, regularity Just a few days before my encounter with Pte Little and his unit, I had arrived at Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) on the "milk run"aboard a C-130 transport plane from the Ali al-Salem US airbase in Kuwait.

On touchdown, I am scheduled to take a helicopter for the short hop to LZ Washington - in the so-called Green Zone - to pick up my press credentials. From there, I am to move on and link up with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, who are at the sharp end of the current US "surge" operation to quell the insurgency in Baghdad'smost volatile neighbourhoods.

At Baghdad airport, the choppers come and go like taxis, disgorging their loads of paratroopers and marines, contractors and spooks, ammo and body bags. Endlessly, the Blackhawks and Chinooks come wobbling down, their rotors blowing bitter gusts of sand and grit for a hundred yards, making those who are waiting to board pull down their goggles and sunglasses before lumbering forward in crouched single file.

As our Blackhawk lifts off, a soldier sitting opposite wearing the shoulder patch of the "Screaming Eagles" 101st Airborne Division, grins and hands me a piece of paper on which there is a caricature illustration of some newly arrived American soldiers at BIAP.

Behind them lies an apocalyptic landscape of smoking, bomb-blasted buildings full of dismembered bodies littering the streets. Sticking up from the devastation is a signpost on which is scrawled in blood-red letters the words: "Welcome to Baghdad."

All the cartoon soldiers stare at the sign except one, who, from the corner of his mouth, urgently asks his buddy. "If God blessed America, then why the f*** are we here?"

Outside the wire

IT'S 2.30 in the morning, just before operational briefing. Some of the men from Charlie Company 1st Battalion 23rd Infantry, 3rd Stryker Brigade are watching Sean "P Diddy" Combs on the Conan O'Brien Show at their FOB (forward operationsbase),Camp Liberty. Company commander Issac Torres asks for the TV to be switched off and begins to brief his men on that night's "isolation operation" in western Baghdad's Iskan district.

"We've got to shut it down," Torres tells his platoon leaders. "Make sure no runners get away, while A Company does the house-to-house."

Twenty minutes later and we're out in the pitch black, clambering up the back ramp into the claustrophobic interior of a 20-tonne Stryker armoured vehicle.

"What's the metal frame for?" I ask Staff Sergeant Michael Watkins, pointing to the steel slats that surround the vehicle. "That's the bird cage," Watkins replies. "Idea is that if Haji fires any RPGs rocket-propelled grenades at us, they get stuck between the slats before hitting the armour and frying us."

As the ramp slams shut and the Stryker's engines kick into life, it feels like being inside a metal tomb.

"Make sure you wear your eye protection and gloves," insists First Sergeant Nelson McLin. "If we hit an IED improvised explosive device the flash can blind and any exposed flesh will burn fast."

McLin is a big, tough-looking black guy with an easy manner. A veteran of Desert Storm and the first Iraq war in 1991, he's been in the service 19 years.

As our convoy of Strykers rolls out from the comparative safety of the FOB into Baghdad's night-time streets, McLin and the other six men on board go through their lock-and-load routine, checking their weapons.

"We're outside the wire pretty much every day," Mclin tells me. "Some dudes come in-country and spend their entire tour sitting behind a desk. They have never been outside the wire," he adds resentfully.

Baghdad's alleyways and streets pass by on the vehicle's infra-red monitor in an eerie, ghost-like green light. It's way after curfew time, and the only living things that should be roaming here are a few cats and dogs.

As the Stryker's crewman Stephen Tranetski - "Ski" to his buddies - flicks the externally mounted camerato thermal-imaging mode, the animals' body warmth glows as if radioactive.

Now and then, Ski swings the camera towards a balcony or window just in time to catch the outline of a person woken by the rumble of the Strykers' engines who has got out of bed to watch them pass by below.

Sometimes the vehicles are forced to a crawling pace as the thermal imaging picks out something buried in the heaps of rotting garbage that lie in the streets. These are a favourite place to hide roadside bombs.

As dawn breaks, we are in position at a junction on the edge of the search area. Twelve hours later we are still there. By now, the platoon are tired and edgy, their nerves frayed by the passing of every vehicle that might contain a giant car bomb, and by every Iraqi passer-by who might just be wearing a belt full of explosives.

Inside the vehicle a few of the men doze, open MREs (meals ready to eat) or read the ubiquitous gun owner and bodybuilding magazines that are so popular among the Joes, as the soldiers call each other. Those on look-out mount foot patrols in the now traffic-packed streets, or, from the turrets of the Stryker, monitor the movement of pedestrians who might be "runners" escaping from A Company's search zone.

"Don't even think about it, or I'll make that white shirt red," screams Specialist Eric Trameri, the platoon's medic as he threatens to shoot a passing Iraqi who insists on crossing the street in front of the vehicle. "And that ain't no shit, neither," Trameri shouts again, just to make his point.

"Kid's stoked," says McLin, nodding up at the turret from where Trameri has taken a bead on the young Arab. Then, as if to change the subject, McLin tells me he went through US army boot camp at Fort Riley, Kansas, with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh when he was a Joe.

"Weird dude," says McLin. "Real control freak, way he lined everything up, and folded all his clothes."

After leaving the army,McVeigh had been a member of America's survivalist movement,before he launched the Oklahoma bomb attack in 1995 that took 168 innocent lives. It was the deadliest act of terrorism in US history until the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. McVeigh was later executed by lethal injection.

Spookily, just as McLin finishes telling his story about McVeigh, there is a massive thump and the air pressure around us inside th eStryker changes momentarily.

"A big one," chips in Ski, springing up through the turret to see if he can pinpoint where the bomb has gone off. A few blocks away an enormous plume of black smoke spirals upwards, and minutes later the wailing of ambulance sirens rises and falls across the neighbourhood.

On the streets outside, we watch as paramedics jump from the open doors at the rear of their vehicles trying to clear a path for the ambulances. But one of the ambulances sits trapped in the traffic for what seems like an eternity. Inside, clearly visible, the floor is awash with blood.

On one trolley lies the charred and contorted body of a little boy or girl. On another is a wounded man, his eyes bulging like those of a dying hen. He twists in agony, his legs hanging from a string of tendons "We're good to go," announces McLin later that afternoon, and we head back to the FOB, the isolation operation over. Just who felt more isolated though - the insurgents on the run, or the men of Charlie Company - is difficult to tell.

No more than two miles out from the FOB, McLin tells me how this is the time of day when the insurgents like to strike a convoy.

Barely have the words left his mouth when a rocket-propelled grenade thumps into the ground near the Stryker immediately behind us.

"Like I said, just before dawn, lunch time and right before nightfall," McLin points out again, a certain professional satisfaction in his voice. "That's when they like it. And it's close to that time right now."

The translators I am lying on my camp bed, earphones in, music on loud so I don't hear the mortar rounds come in. Only the change in air pressure and violent shaking of the locker next to me makes me realise the camp has come under attack. Outside, a crowd has gathered,but it quickly disperses when news comes through that no-one has been injured.

Nearby, on an improvised flood-lit sports field, two teams of Iraqis are playing football while others beat drums and chant from the touchline.

"They call me Keane, after Roy Keane," one of the Iraqi subs tells me. "We're all translators," he explains. The rival teams are made up of those who have been here some time, playing the more recent arrivals.

Being a translator for the coalition forces is a thankless and dangerous job, and Keane admits that often he feels very uncomfortable and embarrassed while accompanying the Americans on house searches.

"Everyone has a grudge against us translators," he says. "The insurgents see us as collaborators, ordinary Iraqis are envious of the money we make, and to the Americans we are just more Hajis." He laughs, using the derogatory expression many US soldiers employ when referring to Arabs.

Keane asks which unit I'm embedded with during operations outside the wire, and I tell him the Stryker Brigade. Just like the translators, the Strykers are unpopular with the Iraqis and the Americans alike, he says. Some US soldiers had even told him the unit is full of "white trash".

"People in Baghdad especially hate the Strykers," Keane says. "They call them the Nazi Brigade or the Dirty Brigade because of the way they behave when searching Iraqi homes.

"Also, because they never hesitate to shoot," he confesses.

House to house

Thought we'd finally nuked Iran," jokes the American infantryman looking up at the weirdly dramatic yellow-grey sky that hangs overhead following a colossal thunderstorm.

The weather reflects the mood of the men,as they muster around their vehicles, grumbling in the ankle-deep mud of the FOB. The news they had all been expecting - but hoped might not happen - has finally come through. Their tours of duty are being extended from 12 to 15 months.

"Any motherf***ing Haji gets in my way today he's wasted," warns one of the men.

Inside the Stryker as we roll towards the Mansour district, some of the men in 3rd Platoon seem especially wired and weird. "Ever seen a grown man naked? Ever been in a Turkish jail," mimics one soldier,a New Yorker, repeatedly for no apparent reason. He seems hyper, as if running on overdrive - or something else.

"Gotta stop takin' those caffeine drops, man," jokes one soldier. "Picked the wrong day to stop glue sniffing," replies the actor, as the others burst into fits of laughter.

It turns out the actor's only quoting from the spoof disaster movie Airplane, and for the rest of the day his rapid-fire delivery of one-liners is unrelenting.

At the old Baathist Crossed Sabres parade ground inside the Green Zone, the company makes its rendezvous with the Iraqi Army units who will conduct the searches.

"Do not get complacent today, tomorrow or the next day,"First Sergeant, Brian Fischer, from Texas, tells 3rd Platoon. "The heat is up and while we ain't going to pick a fight, there's sure going to be one."

Mansour was once uptown Baghdad, an area full of quaint pastry shops and the city's elite living in grand villas. Now, locals say, the insurgents have moved in. As the ramp on the Stryker goes down, the platoon pour on to Mansour's avenues and side streets filled with garbage and makeshift barricades of oil drums and razor wire. The Americans fan out, wary of snipers.

"Sure wouldn't like to get mortared here," says one nervously. For the next three days, through kitchens,outhouses, cellars, garages and bedrooms, the search for guns, explosives and insurgents goes on.

Each house cleared has a sticker put on its front door. But that's little protection, the locals say, from the shadowy gunmen who vanish by day and reappear by night.

Necessary as the searches are said to be, they are often disquieting to witness. In one house in the early hours, a woman and her small children cower petrified, as up to 20 American and Iraqi soldiers trawl through their belongings. More than once, I overhear lewd and insulting wisecracks from the troops.

"Too young even for you,"one American soldier says to another, as they pass a little girl of about 10. Both of the men are presumably unaware that I am within earshot - and that the girl's mother speaks excellent English.

Like the translators, some of the Iraqi troops wear ski masks to hide their identity,and I often witness them inexplicably rifling through jewellery boxes and jars containing small, precious personal items.

Every so often we come across a Kalashnikov. And if there is more than one weapon in the house,the occupants are taken in for questioning, their hands tied with plastic cuffs and a hood put over their heads.

In most places, though, we find nothing but traumatised civilians bunkered down and short of basic provisions. Often they are without electricity and are simply too scared to go beyond the front door.

Two moments stick in my mind. Both were during house searches in Mansour. The first was when we came across a terrified Sunni woman alone with her three-year-old daughter. The woman's name was Sana and her husband had one of the most dangerous jobs in Baghdad - he was a TV cameraman with one of the Arab satellite channels.

Alone in the house, Sana had been visited the previous night by Iraqi Shi'ite soldiers, who had found an ornamental clock on which was embossed the face of Saddam Hussein.

"It's only a toy for my kids," Sana told me. "It's big and they like it, so I didn't throw it out."

For that reason and that reason alone, the soldiers said they would return for her husband and he would be arrested. For a Sunni, such a threat coming from Shi'ite soldiers was tantamount to a death sentence.

The second moment was watching other Iraqi soldiers fussing over a little boy and asking the toddler to blow me a kiss. No sooner did the toddler oblige than he said something to me in Arabic. The soldiers quickly translated it as: "When he grows up he says he's going to shoot you."

Here was the Iraq of the future: one of sectarian death squads and a generation brought up on nothing but killing.

As for the occupiers themselves, some American soldiers were polite during the searches, while others appeared to have learned nothing of Arab or Islamic culture.

A few of the Joes have clearly long given up caring about such things as protocol or basic courtesy.These American soldiers think nothing of dropping cigarette butts or spitting chewing tobacco on the floors of Iraqi family homes.

For them the Hajis are nothing more than a threat to their lives. Politics, the war on terror, making America safe - none of that matters half as much as staying alive and getting home.

Perhaps the badlands of Baghdad, have worn them down, burned them out emotionally. Then again, perhaps they were always like that.