Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/u-s-troops-clash-with-insurgents-in-baghdad Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript A day after a deadly skirmish between U.S. soldiers and Iraqi insurgents in downtown Baghdad, Iraqi militants were arrested in conjunction with the firefight. The New York Times' Baghdad Bureau Chief John Burns reports on the violence and security situation in the Iraq capital. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. RAY SUAREZ: John Burns, welcome. Could you begin by telling us about today's military action in Baghdad? JOHN BURNS, Baghdad Bureau Chief, New York Times: There's been a tense kind of stand-off in the Haifa Street area, north of the Green Zone, where yesterday we saw some of the most intense fighting in central Baghdad for the last two years.A very ominous sign on the eve of President Bush's announcement of his new war strategy that the Sunni insurgents were able to drive right into the heart of Baghdad and to cause such commotion there that the United States yesterday had to deploy F-18 fighter jets overhead a mere 1,000 yards from the Green Zone.But today, things seem to have quieted down, that is by the relative standards of yesterday and by the relative standards of Baghdad, which, as you know, is really in the grip of endless and unceasing violence. RAY SUAREZ: Haven't American troops fought for Haifa Street before? JOHN BURNS: They have. It's the story, in a way, that serves as a kind of metaphor for the problem that President Bush is addressing with his new plan.American troops have repeatedly cleared areas — that is to say, gone in, gone house to house, and driven out Sunni insurgents, only to leave and find that they come back again.And in the case of Haifa Street, your more attentive listeners or readers may remember that, two years ago, in a major campaign, the First Cavalry Division, as it then was, retook control of the Haifa Street area. It was a signal success at the time, one of the more important successes of the war, because Haifa Street is an arrow that points right at the heart of the Green Zone.To have an insurgent stronghold so close to the seat of American military and, if you will, political power here, not to mention the Iraqi government, was a serious thing. So to discover two years on that they're back having to do it all over again is a pretty serious and disheartening thing for the American military and for the American enterprise here.