Baghdad's streets were electric with tension Wednesday as U.S. officials confirmed the new security operation was under way. U.S. armor rushed through streets, and Iraqi armored personnel carriers guarded bridges and major intersections. New coils of barbed-wire and blast barriers marked checkpoints that caused traffic bottlenecks. U.S. Apache helicopters whipped the air over parts of the capital where they hadn't been seen before.But gunfire still rang out across the city, and some residents said they doubted life would get better. "Nothing will work, it's too late," said Hashem al-Moussawi, a resident of the Sadr City Shiite enclave who was badly wounded in a bombing in December.
Underlining the dangers, a U.S. Marine transport helicopter crashed northwest of Baghdad, killing all seven on board - the fifth American aircraft lost in Iraq in just over two weeks. A military statement did not give a cause for the crash, but a senior U.S. defense official in Washington said the CH-46 Sea Knight did not appear to have been hit by hostile fire. An Iraqi air force officer, however, said the chopper was downed by an anti-aircraft missile. An al-Qaida-linked Sunni group claimed in a Web statement that it was responsible.