Out of sight.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=156839&f=20

Things seem to be going well in Baghdad. Not a day goes by without a story of another Iraqi unit abandoning its post or being overrun by a militia. The American forces will only conduct offensive operations if they have helicopters and drones in the air. And increasingly we are the ones manning front line defensive positions.
But that's all about to change. Last year Sunni driven violence was reduced by putting a giant wall around their neighborhoods and only allowing movement in and out through check points. Now it looks like the same effort is underway in sadr city. By cutting the neighborhood in half and severing the main traffic artery the hope is the militias will be deprived of the capability to rearm and reinforce positions.

Will this work is a valid and very much unsettled question. But my main complaint is the continuing myopic definition of success. Cutting sadr's ability to harass Iraqi troops is secondary to the objective of getting people in sadr city to accept the legitimacy of the government of Iraq and the primacy of non violent forms of political contestation.

And on this front the plan is to hire 200 people to pick up trash for a few weeks!?! 'Sorry about destroying your neighborhood and all. Here's a hundred bucks to pick up the rubble out tanks left behind. We are all square now right?'. Dane Cook's bit on American militarism comes to mind here (in case you haven't heard it the short form is 'America is the greatest country but sometimes we get cocky and blow shit up then we always come back and apologize because we are really sorry, do you mind if we leave some troops, DO YA'H MIND').