{"page":"\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/resources-c03aa079.css\" /\u003e\n\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/lp_boclips_stylesheets-517835be.css\" media=\"all\" /\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-title='US army says Baghdad security improves as Iraq conf begins  in Sweden' data-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bf4ed8eafeecae142205' data-video-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bf4ed8eafeecae142205' id='bo_player_modal'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='boclips-resource-page modal-dialog panel-container'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='react-notifications-root'\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-header'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-type'\u003e\n\u003ci aria-hidden='true' class='fai fa-regular fa-circle-play'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\nVideo\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch1 class='rp-title' id='video-title'\u003e\nUS army says Baghdad security improves as Iraq conf begins  in Sweden\n\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-actions'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='mr-1'\u003e\n\u003ca class=\"btn btn-success\" data-posthog-event=\"Signup: LP Signup Activity\" data-posthog-location=\"body_link_boclips\" data-remote=\"true\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet Free Access\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\"\u003e for 10 Days\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-body'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-info'\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-label='Hide resource details' class='rp-hide-info' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u0026times;\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Expand resource details' class='rp-expand-info fai fa-solid fa-up-right-and-down-left-from-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Compress resource details' class='rp-compress-info fai fa-solid fa-down-left-and-up-right-to-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-rating'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='resource-pool'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-label'\u003ePublisher:\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-name'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='text'\u003e\u003ca data-publisher-id=\"30356011\" href=\"/search?publisher_ids%5B%5D=30356011\"\u003eCurated Video\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-description'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='short-description'\u003eIskandariyah district, south of Baghdad, Iraq - 13 May 2008 1. Major General Rick Lynch walking with Sabbah al-Khaffaji, who runs an industrial complex 2. Various of Lynch and al-Khaffaji inside the industrial complexFILE: Exact location...\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='full-description hide'\u003eIskandariyah district, south of Baghdad, Iraq - 13 May 2008 \u003cbr/\u003e1. Major General Rick Lynch walking with Sabbah al-Khaffaji, who runs an industrial complex \u003cbr/\u003e2. Various of Lynch and al-Khaffaji inside the industrial complex\u003cbr/\u003eFILE: Exact location unknown, western Iraq, 2006 \u003cbr/\u003e3. Various of masked insurgents in street brandishing their guns \u003cbr/\u003e4. Masked insurgents launching a rocket, UPSOUND: insurgents chanting \"Allah is great\"\u003cbr/\u003e5. Rocket been launched from platform \u003cbr/\u003e6. Masked gunman firing from his machine gun as another one launches RPG (rocket-propelled grenade)\u003cbr/\u003eIskandariyah district, south of Baghdad, Iraq - 13 May 2008 \u003cbr/\u003e7. Various interiors of industrial complex\u003cbr/\u003e8. Various of Iraqi workers at work \u003cbr/\u003e9. Mid of Lynch and Sabbah al-Khaffaji \u003cbr/\u003e10. Various of employees inside computer room \u003cbr/\u003e11. Wide of Lynch entering computer room \u003cbr/\u003e12. Mid of Lynch \u003cbr/\u003e13. Mid of Lynch surveying products in another room \u003cbr/\u003e14. Various of workers wielding \u003cbr/\u003e15. Workers standing near a machine, pan to wide of Lynch who is standing with a group\u003cbr/\u003e16. Lynch receiving merit certificate from Sabbah al Khaffaji inside his office \u003cbr/\u003e17. SOUNDBITE: (English) Major General Rick Lynch:\u003cbr/\u003e\"What we had to do in the last year to turn this place back around so it has 3000 people employed now. And it's on the way to have it more improved. You saw, they make great products and now we have to have the demands for these products.\"\u003cbr/\u003e18. SOUNDBITE: (English) Major General Rick Lynch:\u003cbr/\u003e\"We have made a marked improvement, and I just don't see sectarian violence anymore. In our area people kept talking about Sunnis versus Shiites. I don't see that now. Everywhere I go I see people identifying themselves as Iraqi. That is their identification - 'I am not Shiite, I'm not Sunni, I'm Iraqi', and collectively they're working to improve their area for their children and their children's children. In retrospect, we're very happy where we are. But there's a lot of work that still needs to be done, this is a tenuous security situation, the enemy could indeed come back, the people could become dissatisfied with their government and as a result could revert back to old ways of doing business.\"\u003cbr/\u003e19. Pan of female employees sitting at sewing machines \u003cbr/\u003e20. Various of clothes hanging on the wall, products from the sewing section\u003cbr/\u003eWhen the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division arrived in Iraq's once infamous \"Triangle of Death,\" violence there and in neighbouring Baghdad was so intense that hundreds were dying every day and the country was in near to a civil war.\u003cbr/\u003eNow as the division heads home at the end of May, the region stretching south from Baghdad and across central Iraq has become a showcase for what the US military hoped to achieve in Iraq.\u003cbr/\u003e\"When we first arrived here 15 months ago there was nothing but sectarian violence, al-Qaida, Shiite extremists,\" the division commander Major General Rick Lynch said as he wrapped up a tour of an industrial complex.\u003cbr/\u003eIraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and US officials are likely to tout successes like that during a UN conference that begins Thursday in Sweden, aimed at reviewing political and security progress in Iraq. \u003cbr/\u003eThe gathering will also see pressure on Iraqi leaders to make similar movement on political goals, such as reconciliation between the country's Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.\u003cbr/\u003eThe US military says violence across Iraq has reached its lowest level in more than four years, after successes this year in breaking al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents' hold in western Iraq and - more recently - government crackdowns in the southern city of Basra and northern city of Mosul.\u003cbr/\u003eBut the success in the Triangle of Death, centred on the town of Iskandariyah, is perhaps the most dramatic. \u003cbr/\u003eThe area's population is mixed between Sunnis and Shiites to a far greater degree than many others, and in 2006 and 2007 militants from each community were killing each other, as well as attacking US and Iraqi forces.\u003cbr/\u003eThe area has boomeranged to become a bastion of relative peace on the edge of a violent capital, while Sunni militants remain elusive in the north.\u003cbr/\u003eOne likely reason for the greater success is the logistical support from being close to Baghdad. \u003cbr/\u003eMosul, where a major Iraqi military campaign is currently under way against al-Qaida, is 225 miles (140 kilometres) northwest of the capital - compared to the 30 miles (50 kilometres) between Baghdad and Iskandariyah.\u003cbr/\u003eAnother is the division's success recruiting members of the so-called Awakening Councils, Sunni groups who turned against al-Qaida in Iraq after the terror group began imposing draconian measures to enforce religious discipline in neighbourhoods they controlled throughout the Triangle of Death. \u003cbr/\u003eThere are about 36,000 Awakening Council members on the payroll.\u003cbr/\u003eA third is a cease-fire ordered last August by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia is present in the region far more than areas north of Baghdad.\u003cbr/\u003eBattalion commanders in the field also point to new counter-insurgency strategies, where units clear an area of fighters and stay to hold it from slipping back into insurgent hands.\u003cbr/\u003eSunni fighters who swarmed the area are also nearly gone. They have either been killed, or co-opted into Awakening Councils, said a commander  based in nearby Mahmoudiya.\u003cbr/\u003eThe result is predominately Shiite areas along the main corridors north into Baghdad.\u003cbr/\u003eMost recently, the farmlands south of Baghdad were flooded with US soldiers, and areas once controlled by a single battalion of under 1,000 soldiers are now the responsibility of a brigade of 3,500.\u003cbr/\u003eShortly after the 3rd ID (Third Infantry Division) arrived, its 20,000 soldiers launched large military operations to quash al-Qaida cells and Shiite militias.\u003cbr/\u003eViolence in the area, where US troops once travelled only in large numbers, has plunged by 89 percent since last year. Mortar and rocket attacks are largely a thing of the past, though some suicide bombings continue.\u003cbr/\u003e\"I just don't see sectarian violence anymore,\" Lynch said. \"In our area, people kept talking about Sunni versus Shiite. I don't see that now. Everywhere I go, I see people identifying themselves as Iraqi. That is their identification - I am not Shiite, I'm not Sunni, I'm Iraqi.\"\u003cbr/\u003eLynch and his officers knew they did not have the resources to jump-start the region's economy, so instead they focused on a variety of ventures - a vocational school, the industrial plant and smaller projects such as fish farming.\u003cbr/\u003eSabbah al-Khaffaji, who sits on the city council, runs the industrial plant, which has contracts worth more than 6 million US dollar.\u003cbr/\u003eLast year it employed a couple hundred people on an intermittent basis, now it has nearly 3,000 workers. \u003cbr/\u003eThe vocational school had fewer than 500 students just six months ago; it now has about 1,500, learning generator maintenance, metal work, sewing and other skills needed by the local economy.\u003cbr/\u003eBut Lynch warns that the fight has not been fully won.\u003cbr/\u003e\"This is a tenuous security situation,\" Lynch said. \"The enemy could indeed come back, the people could become 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