26 July New York Times - Battle for Baghdad Boils Down to Grabbing a Slice at a Time by Michael Gordon.

The Bush administration’s announcement on Tuesday that it will shift more forces to Baghdad is much more than a numbers game. It reflects a new strategy to reclaim control of the Iraqi capital and a new approach for deploying the troops.

The plan is to concentrate on specific neighborhoods rather than distribute the forces throughout the city, control movement in and out of sectors of the capital and try to sweep them of insurgents and violent militias.

In effect, the scheme is a version of the “ink blot” counterinsurgency strategy of grabbing a piece of terrain, stabilizing it and gradually expanding it. Only this time the objective is not a far-flung Iraqi city or town, but the capital, the seat of the fledgling government and home to some seven million Iraqis.

The plan has risks. It will divert American military police from deploying to Anbar Province, where the insurgency continues to rage. And an increased presence of American troops on the ground in Baghdad, where insurgent attacks have soared, carries the potential of more American casualties.

But Baghdad in military parlance is the “center of gravity” for the larger effort to secure the country...

By securing the city a sector at a time, American and Iraqi commanders hope to allow the Iraqi government to restore essential services and build support and legitimacy among an anxious public.

Once the areas are stabilized, the Iraqi police are to be brought in to maintain control, freeing the American and Iraqi military to extend their reach elsewhere. The Iraqi police are to be accompanied by American military police, who will act as advisers and trainers.

The Americans and the Iraqis are likely to start with the easiest sectors, calculating that they need to demonstrate a measure of success before taking on the most contested areas. Even as they expand their control the American and Iraqi forces will maintain the ability to conduct raids in less secure areas of the city.

The war is a contest of moves and countermoves, and the insurgents and the militias that the new American and Iraqi forces will confront can be expected to strike back...