Marja's Toughest Job Still Ahead

NATO has been criticized for killing too many civilians, and military commanders and civilian planners for the Marja surge worry that the toughest challenge lies ahead. Part of the problem is that they were deceived by the two-dimensional images from satellites, which made a bombed-out school appear to be a police station, and another building’s foundation look like a large, rectangular government building. "We're just in the opening act,” a state department official said. The goal is to clear the area and set up a stable government to gain the trust of locals, who will then, Marines hope, have the confidence to offer the names of Taliban fighters. But building that trust will take time. "We don't want you to come here and fight and then leave," a local man told an officer, referring to what British and U.S. forces did twice before.