U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city's population and the front line of al-Sadr's campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr's militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they've trained and armed.

"Half of them are JAM. They'll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night," said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army's 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia's Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. "People (in America) think it's bad, but that we control the city. That's not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It's hostile territory."

"Honestly, within six months of us leaving, the way Iranian clerics run the country behind the scenes, it'll be the same way here with Sadr," said Quinn, 25, of Cleveland. "He already runs our side of the river."

But don't worry because the surge is going to turn this all around. That's what General Casey told us today, after all.

I can't cite to anybody specific, but intelligent commentators have been stating for sometime that to train the Iraqi army was inevitably, to train members of militias. In fact, the Iraqi army is and has been riddled with members loyal to Shiite militias for sometime, so that even if they remained in uniform they were still really fighting for their militia. And we've been training the army this whole time.
 Alexander Wolfe | 5:44 PM