This
article gives a fascinating glimpse of US Army interactions with Iraqi civilians.
Some interesting paragraphs:
"A surgical assistant at the Saddam hospital in Nassiriya, interviewed at a marine check point outside the city, said that on Sunday, half an hour after two dead marines were brought into the hospital, US aircraft dropped what he described as three or four cluster bombs on civilian areas, killing 10 and wounding 200."
...
"Asked about the much-vaunted fedayeen militia, reported by some sources to be leading the battle, Mr Ali said: 'They are children.' Other travellers from Nassiriya said they were press-ganged youths who went into battle dressed in black with black scarves wound around their faces and who fight for fear of the execution committees waiting to shoot them if they try to run.
"Watching from behind a barbed wire barrier as hundreds of the marines' ammunition trucks, armoured amphibious vehicles, tankers, tanks and trucks lumbered past through clouds of dust as fine as talcum powder, Mr Ali asked why such a huge army was needed just to catch a sin gle man. 'We don't want Saddam, but we don't want them [the Americans] to stay afterwards,' he said. 'Like they entered into Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar and didn't leave, they will do here. They are fighting Islam. They're entering under the pretext of targeting Ba'ath, but they won't leave.'
Another Iraqi squatting next to him leaned over, pointed to the convoys and said: 'This is better than Saddam's government.' "
...
"Staff Sergeant Larry Simmons, a Floridian from a marine reconnaissance unit in a foxhole overlooking the bridge, was not impressed by what he saw. 'You learn about the Euphrates in geography class, and you get here and you think: "This is the Euphrates? Looks like a muddy creek to me".'"
"The marines are aggrieved: aggrieved that the Iraqis aren't more grateful, aggrieved that the Iraqis are shooting at them, aggrieved that the US army's spearhead 3rd Infantry Division tore through Nassiriya earlier in the invasion without making it safe."
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