As I’ve noted before, USA Today has the fairest Iraq coverage of any major newspaper. Today’s front-page story on the surge in Baghdad is another indication of that. It reports on the successes, but also the challenges. Here’s the gist:

An extra 28,500 American troops and a new strategy to open outposts across Baghdad have helped reduce the violence in many parts of the capital, and made neighborhoods safer. Stores are opening and people are walking at night in some areas. But the Iraqi government’s failure to resolve long-simmering ethnic hatreds and make concessions to Sunnis suggest the improved security may remain only as long as U.S. forces are here, keeping a lid on violence.

It focuses in particular on an outpost called Casino:

When this combat outpost, named Casino, was established in January, Ghazaliyah was a battleground. Shiite militias had pushed Sunnis from their homes in this predominantly Sunni neighborhood. That drove many Sunnis to al-Qaeda, concentrated in southern Ghazaliyah, for protection.
Streets were empty and stores closed. Gunfire crackled around the outpost each day. U.S. forces would find 15 bodies a day in the area, many of them victims of sectarian killings, said Joyce, of Garden City, N.Y.
“Now we have a bad day (when we) find one,” Joyce said.

These kind of details might prompt Harry Reid to attack the author of the piece, Jim Michaels, as dangerously detached from conditions in Iraq:

Civilians are benefiting from the improved security.
On a recent late-night patrol, U.S. troops cruised past a well-lit ice cream parlor where clusters of Iraqis sat at outdoor tables eating and talking.
Across the street, a man fanned the coals on a sidewalk kebab stand, sending a shower of sparks into the night air. Clusters of men dressed in traditional dishdashas, or robes, strolled on the sidewalks.
The troops are building barricades around neighborhoods so residents have to come through Iraqi army checkpoints before entering.
U.S. soldiers also are collecting census data from those in every home. The goal is to keep outsiders from entering the neighborhood.
During a recent patrol, Iraqi and American Humvees rolled down a street in the midday sun.
A small group of U.S. soldiers went to each house on the block, getting data from residents inside walled courtyards. On the street, children clustered around soldiers.
Sgt. Sergej Michaud, 24, of Caribou, Maine, handed out cereal and muffins from the back of a Humvee. Children ran to him with outstretched arms.
“If we were doing this (last) February, we’d be getting shot at,” he said. A small boy brought the U.S. soldiers a stack of steaming flatbread made in a backyard oven.
“Kids are not afraid of us anymore,” said McMahan as he took photos of children clustered outside his Humvee.

It is also clear that the surge is part and parcel of improving and training Iraqi forces:

The strategy also seems to have improved the proficiency of Iraqi soldiers, American troops say.
When they first arrived at Casino, U.S. soldiers say their Iraqi counterparts routinely would abandon checkpoints, fearful they couldn’t repel attacks from al-Qaeda.
The addition of more U.S. troops has boosted their confidence.
“Now they feel they’re somewhat secure,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey Rhodan, of Beaufort, S.C. “They’re manning them.”
They’re learning from increased exposure to U.S. forces, Campbell said. “The difference is that we’re living with them right now.”

Read the whole thing, for a balanced view of what we’re doing in Baghdad and also for the details it has on the incredibly grueling work our inspiring troops are doing there on the ground.