Online NewsHour: How long were you in Anbar Province and what exactly was your troop unit doing? Give us a picture of the daily life there.
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David Morris , reporter for the Virginia Quarterly Review: I left for Anbar from the US in July so I've been there for about two months embedding with various different marine units and combat units in western Iraq.

At this point, Anbar used to be on of the worst possibly the worst and deadliest province in all of Iraq. Just recently about six months ago they have had a lot of changes in terms of their tribal relations. So where they used to be combat operations and a lot of clearing and sweeps and traditional combat, what most Americans think of as combat has kind of transitioned in the last six months and now they are doing a lot more what the marines refer to as tribal engagement

It is sort of interesting because for the most part you are trying to provide Security for the locals, but a lot of the times what you are doing is going out and meeting with families, making sure they have what they need, talking to the locals sheiks and doing basic city council type discussion with them. Where are we coming on these construction projects? How is it coming with security in your neighborhood? Do you have, you know is the sewage working, how many hours of electricity did you have last night?

Interestingly, I've done some stories in the third world in Latin America and East Africa. A lot of what we are doing now resembles sort of a militarized version of tourism in the sense that that you ware going out and having dinner with local families and talking over events and conditions with them. On a couple occasions actually went out and had a full 3 or four hour dinner, a full evening session with a family in a village north of Fallujah.

Online NewsHour: In Anbar, is it fair to say the military and security situation is going well, but that the politics are failing?
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David Morris: What you just said is very much true for the whole of Iraq, but Anbar is always kind of the province it's own little world and different from the rest of Iraq. But very much the security in Anbar has improved drastically 100 percent over the last six m months, so they are doing a lot more basic political cultivation working with local tribal leaders to increase, improve the governance and civil and municipal services.

Even Marine leaders and people in Anbar will admit the main problem-you know Baghdad is the center of gravity in Iraq. The US mission is going to stand or fail, succeed or fail, based on what happens in Baghdad. There has still generally speaking hasn't had much headway in terms of political reform in Anbar, which is almost completely Sunni, basically 99 percent Sunni, there still is this wide perceptions that Baghdad is basically run by Iranian influences, and that for the most part they look at Baghdad as being sort of the enemy to an extent.

So there is this tension, this competition between the large cities in Anbar, Ramadi and Fallujah, and Baghdad. It's almost an extreme version of regional rivalries in any country, except for the fact that you have religion, and a long standing ancient rivalries between these two groups. Between the Sunni and the Shia.

Online NewsHour: Could you describe a day in the life of an Iraqi, in Fallujah for example? How has daily life changed from the last time you were there?
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David Morris: I can't speak for a 24-hour period for a local Fullujahan, but when I was there in 2006 I saw a few locals, I saw some people got to interact with some families on a very superficial and limited basis.

But when I was in Fallujah the last month, now granted the city is not totally rebuilt, it's about half rubble, probably a little less than half of the stores are open in the main market. But there is the sense that the city is kind of catching its breath and rebuilding.

You do see kids riding their bikes around you do see kids playing with soccer balls. You do see locals sort of doing the normal urban grind. They are walking along the main streets, they are shopping, they are having lunch in cafes. So you are beginning to see some of the normalcy returning.

But there is still, Fallujah when you drive through there is no doubt about it the city looks like its been trampled by elephants I mean it's a heavily militarized urban space there is concrete barriers, real tall 10 foot tall US placed concrete barriers and barbed wires and sentries. Iraq police walking around with AK-47s and there are civilians making their way and returning gingerly to their lives pre 2003, but its taking a while.

Online NewsHour: The soldiers you were embedded with, what are their lives like now? Are they more relaxed?
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David Morris: Life for the Marines, the soldiers in Anbar is considerably less deadly. There is more of a police like routine. They would get up in the morning, maybe link up with an Iraqi police patrol and do a patrol throughout the city, meet with the locals. Maybe ask around a certain neighborhood, check up on some tips they got about some bad guys potential being in a certain neighborhood.

I went out with one platoon, I was living with them for a week, and they basically built over the course of the week built a precinct, an Iraqi police station precinct office in southern Fallujah and began meeting with the local police and having ethics classes with them and they had this big neighborhood watch recruiting drive that kicked off so they had a huge line of 200 or 300 local Iraqis that were volunteering to be part of the Iraqi neighborhood watch system, which is sort of like a police auxiliary force. So they had all these folks lined up and they were giving them blue T-shirts. They would basically do a quick security check on them and get them out and start having them work the streets of Fallujah.

So there is sort of traditional combat tasks and traditionally combat operations that marines and soldiers are doing but there is continual repeated attempt to start shoving Iraqis into the position of doing the security.

But its still real hot out here, its still real dirty work so its still hard work out here in Iraq, but there is a little less shooting and a little less IEDs and suicide bombing going on.

Online NewsHour: What is the mentality of the soldiers there? What is the sense of their mission and if this is actually a success story for them?
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David Morris: Well, on the face of it, it is obviously a limited success story for them. But it's funny because if you talk to your average marine or soldier, a lot of them joined to fight.

These are guys that you will see sitting around reading old samurai books and books about warfare. So, on the one hand, they are very happy that they are not being shot at every day and that their buddies are not dying, but then on the other hand you have these very curious conversations with them where you sort of ask them how they are feeling about developments in Iraq, and they will admit to you, kind of surprisingly, that they are also a little bit bored. And that while they don't want their buddies to get shot, or certainly don't want their buddies or anybody to die, they do, without a doubt, miss the excitement and the adrenaline of traditional combat. Which is a real strange conversation to have when you think about it. Because you would think, you know, nobody wants to face death on a daily basis.

But the military trains people first and foremost, and the Marine Corps especially, trains people to be warriors. So there is that desire to, you know, use your training to do what you were trained to do. So it is a really funny position to be in, because they will admit that it is a little contradictory to want to be in combat because it is more exciting. But they recognize, and their officers have done a good job, and their leaders have done a good job of explaining to them that guns at this point really are not going to win the war. It's about talking to the locals and developing a consensus with the locals to keep the insurgents out.

Online NewsHour: You have only been in Baghdad for a short time, but can you describe your initial perceptions?
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David Morris: Well, being out in Anbar is funny, because you tell people from Baghdad you have been in Anbar and they sort of look at you -- they first thing they will say to you, "Oh, Anbar is kind of the Wild West." Which is true, it has always been this more fiercely tribal, more rural, desert region, whereas Baghdad is this huge, megalopolis, this enormous city.

The time I have spent in Baghdad is always fascinating, because I am sort of accustomed to being out with smaller combat units and you are sort of at the cutting edge of the war, sort of the grunt level of the war, where maybe you are with a company. But when you walk into Baghdad you sort of get this sense of big army, the size and the scope of the American presence in Iraq. You sort of feel the permanence of it. Added to that the fact that most of the Army headquarters units are actually working.

Right now I am talking to you from this enormous palace, the Al-Faw inside of Camp Victory, which is this beautiful, huge, grand structure that Saddam used, that Saddam built. So you have this kind of feeling, that although we are certainly, most officers, don't want to talk about this, we are not building an empire over here, but there is this feeling of a large American presence exerting its will upon the country.

-- Interview by Meghann Farnsworth, Online NewsHour