HUSAYBA, Iraq, April 2 — Last August, under daily attack from car bombs and mortars, the Marines took down the only bridge over the Euphrates River for miles around.
In November 2005, Marines went house to house to search for insurgents in Husayba, Iraq.
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The Marines took down a bridge into Husayba to deter insurgents.
Now they are trying to rebuild it.
With the bridge down, marines say, insurgents and foreign fighters can no longer infiltrate as easily into this town near the Syrian border in western Anbar Province, the heavily Sunni Arab area that has formed the heart of the insurgency. But Iraqis who live on the river's northern bank grumble that they have no easy way to get to town to buy and sell goods or to see the doctor.
"The biggest complaint I hear is that we took down the bridge," said Lt. Col. Nick Marano, commander of the Marine battalion here. "We have to replace it and we will."
The shifting priorities illustrate the trade-off between combat and reconstruction that the American military is still grappling with, but especially in remote regions like this one, where the Iraqi government is still almost nonexistent.
The Marines' effort is also a test of the Bush administration's declaration that it will focus this year on holding and rebuilding Iraqi towns, rather than departing after military operations and allowing insurgents to return.
Though the orders from Washington are to clear, hold and build, accomplishing that on the ground is proving difficult.
The centerpiece of the nationwide effort, announced by the State Department last year, was supposed to be 18 provincial reconstruction teams in cities and towns around the country. But security conditions have limited the number created to only four so far, in Hilla, Mosul, Kirkuk and Baghdad, although two more are scheduled to open in about a month.
[In Washington on Wednesday, a senior United States government official attributed the delay in expanding the program to reluctance by the American military to take on additional duties guarding the provincial reconstruction teams and their headquarters in the field. "One can understand that, that they want to focus on their own principal duties, which are in war fighting," the official said. "So the program has had a lot of growing pains."]
In Husayba, the Marines are the only reconstruction team around. They use local labor as much as possible, but Colonel Marano is not sure he will be able to find a company that can handle the work.
In addition, the bridge project has not been budgeted by the provincial government, several marines said.
Hoping for an interim fix, Colonel Marano inquired recently about moving a little-used pontoon bridge installed by Army engineers miles down river. He was told that the unit was to rotate back to the United States soon, and would be taking its bridge back.
For now, small boats ferry residents across the river.
Another major project — to rebuild the Iraqi customs building at the border crossing with Syria, which was destroyed by three car bombs in a huge explosion last year — won't begin until June or July. Trade with Syria, both legal and illegal, has long been the mainstay of the economy here, and Colonel Marano said the 17 Sunni sheiks in the area lobby him constantly to reopen the crossing.
Colonel Marano said he was spending $14 million on smaller projects around the region, fixing roads and schools, removing rubble and installing water treatment facilities. He said he told the sheiks, some of whom aided the insurgents last year, that they would see an economic payoff if they demonstrated their loyalty.
"I have told them it's a performance-based relationship," he said. "As long as the security situation remains good we will work the infrastructure improvements and provide jobs for their tribes."
He added, "The moment there's an attack against marines or Iraqi soldiers, I expect them to provide intelligence about who did it."
Last year, American commanders were describing Husayba and several neighboring towns, known as the Qaim region, as a major insurgent haven. Some of them were foreign fighters who crossed over the Syrian border, but others were Iraqis who had been forced out of Falluja and other cities closer to Baghdad and taken refuge here, he said.
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