In 2004, the area south of Baghdad - with apexes at Mahmudiyah to the north, Yusufiyah to the west and Iskandariyah to the south - was called the Triangle of Death.

Next to Anbar, it was considered one of the most dangerous places in Iraq. Prior to 2007, it was only occasionally swept by US forces and left to the Iraqi army who, more often than not, found themselves hunted by rather than hunting insurgents.

But beginning in June, 2007, following the progress in achieving security in Baghdad itself, US forces began moving into the surrounding areas including the Triangle of Death. Leaving the larger camps, US forces redeployed into smaller combat outposts and patrol bases. From there they could get closer to the local population, control the routes into Baghdad which were used to smuggle in munitions, and strike at al-Qaida cells and safe houses.

By July, there had been enough progress in Operation Marne Torch for Major General Rick Lynch, commander of Multinational Division Center and the 3rd Infantry Division, to look past combat operations into reconciliation and reconstruction - even as the fighting continued.

ON NOVEMBER 2, 2007 the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) arrived on station within this formerly notorious area, commanded by Colonel Dominic Caraccilo, as part of Task Force Marne.

The task force was responsible for operations in the areas south of Baghdad.

By this stage things had quieted down considerably from six months before. One indication of how much the situation had improved was that 3rd Brigade Combat Team lost only one soldier in four months in an area where the previous unit lost 60 soldiers in 15 months. But while improved, things were by no means completely safe.

As blogger Bill Roggio wrote when he visited Arab Jabour in September of 2007, the area was still an "an odd mix of direct engagement with the local citizens and direct attacks on al-Qaida cells... fixed wing and helicopter strikes, mortar attacks, and air assaults on al-Qaida cells in one moment, while dealing with the concerned citizens and reconstruction projects the next."

Still dangerous, but quiet enough, Colonel Caraccilo thought, to provide a window of opportunity in which the 3rd Brigade Combat Team could consolidate gains and concentrate on improving governance and essential services within the area. As they took over each of their predecessor's 14 forward operating bases, the brigade took stock of the situation in each. The challenge common to all was how to convert the 20,000 Sons of Iraq, a force begun by the brigade's predecessors into either the Iraqi Army, Iraqi Police, or some other economic opportunity.

As matters stood they were in transition.

The Sons of Iraq had either been insurgent sympathizers or had sat on the fence. They had now thrown their lot in with the Coalition; and the problem was to get them out of transition and firmly into the structure of the Iraqi state. The combat team walked deliberately into a risky situation with the Sons of Iraq (SOIs), some undoubtedly former enemy, standing guard on the roads. Caraccilo knew he had to transition those SOIs into Iraqi security forces or risk some of them reverting to their former freebooting ways.

BASED ON the experience of his two previous deployments to Iraq, Caraccilo initially had doubts about whether the Iraqi security forces could stand up fast enough to absorb the SOIs who had become "reconciled" to the government. But to his pleasant surprise the Iraqis were more than up to the task. Third Brigade Combat Team, partnered with an Iraqi brigade led by the redoubtable Brigadier General Ali, soon found that it could "lead from behind" as the Iraqis took the lead in maintaining security.

With this process in place, 3rd Brigade could realistically hope to create a sustainably secure environment. But Caraccilo was keenly aware of the need to make progress in the key areas of economic development and political stabilization. Without prosperity and functioning government the security gains would remain unstable.

FORTUNATELY the unexpected competence of Iraqi security forces allowed the brigade to reassign some of their units to reconstruction. It was a task at which they proved effective. Caraccilo felt his officers and NCOs were well equipped to figure out solutions to governance problems and identify economic opportunities. After all, generic problem-solving skills were not in short supply in the Airborne. As to the more esoteric subject matter skills - such as in agriculture or poultry-raising since the area was predominantly agricultural - those could be supplied by experts on the embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team (ePRT).

EPRTs were deployed by the State Department but lived with the troops.

Yet just as with the SOIs, long-term success hinged on being able to create institutions which could sustain the economic and political gains. Simply helping farmers raise crops and chickens in Iraq was not going to be enough.

Caraccilo aimed to use developments at the grassroots to push the wider reconciliation agenda. The population was the prize. And unless the brigade could both win them over and mobilize them to build further stability any progress would be temporary.

Just as the SOIs had been institutionalized within the Iraqi security forces, local economic initiatives had to be sustained by improvements in Iraqi governance. Otherwise neither security nor economic development would last long. But the key to improving governance required a component the brigade itself could not provide. Some way had to be found to move leaders who proved themselves at the grassroots level into public office the way SOIs segued into the Iraqi Army. The obvious way was to elect them into office. But the biggest obstacle to this development was the Iraqi electoral law itself.

ELECTIONS at the district and provincial levels currently followed the "closed party list" system in which candidates running for office had to be chosen from lists provided by political parties. The system was designed during the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom by UN advisers who ruled out voting by geographical location for a variety of technical and political reasons.