How is the "new" house to house search strategy of the US military going to help anything if they still don't,

Question

have a clue who insurgents/terrorist are? And won't the searches make the Iraqis hate the US military even more than they already do?

How is the US military going to search over ten million Iraqi Sunni homes for insurgents, terrorists and IEDs?

Answer 1

It won't help either way, because we have to have a way of identifying the terrorist and insurgents anyway. We also have to remember that their are the secterian militias formed to fight opposing Islamic sects, insurgents from withing Iraq who want the US out, and terrorists who come from outside the country with outside funding who are there to fight the US.

I'm sure the searches will make the Iraqi's turn on the US even more. I mean how would you react if the police started searching every house in America in order to win the 'war on drugs'?

Answer 2

Their weapons and the bomb making materials are not a gift from their god - the more we find, the better.
And it won't take a giant leap of deduction to conclude that the explosives belonging to the owner/resident probably weren't for new road construction projects.
It is difficult to believe that the "Iraqi people" you speak of don't have a clue of what's going down when their neighbors gather together to build yet another roadside bomb or load up their buggy with explosives before heading for town.
If it is indeed only fear that is holding them back from more cooperation, they should welcome the searches. If they have nothing to hide - and truly want to rid their neighborhoods of these murdering dirt bags - they should have no reason to object to the searches.
My biggest concern is why are we announcing the searches? I kind of wished the cop with the radar parked alongside the highway would post a warning a few miles ahead. The "1,2,3.......18, 19, 20.....Here we come, ready or not" strategy kind of defeats the effectiveness of a search, don't you think?