Watson Coleman: “my experience is much like the Senator from Alabama. When I was there in the fall, it was described to me as the ``Wild…”

“my experience is much like the Senator from Alabama. When I was there in the fall, it was described to me as the ``Wild West'' and it was not very uplifting. When I was there in April, we had Minnesota National Guard soldiers who were serving in Anbar Province, and they told me of an incident in a town called Habbaniya, where a suicide bomber drove into a crowd coming out of a mosque, killing or wounding 70 Iraqis. It was the American soldiers and National Guardsmen giving blood, even though not a single American had been hurt or injured. Then they told me, the next day, or shortly thereafter, the local mayor and the local sheik came in with a list of al-Qaida operatives and said: These are the enemy. We want to work with you side by side to root them out. I ask the Senator, in your experience there, have you also seen incidents or heard of incidents where the brutality of al-Qaida against Sunnis has evoked a response from local sheiks and local elected officials to work side by side with the Americans--be they the Marines, Army, or National Guard?”