IN COUNTRY

It's just before midnight, the night after Christmas and it's raining in Baghdad. Lt. Col. Frank Sherman, commander of the 1st Battalion, 13th Armor Regiment, sits in his humvee just inside the gate of a former Iraqi base that hugs a bend on the Tigris River and holds a notorious secret police prison. His unit and a battalion from the 82nd Airborne use the base now. The prison cells are used by the Americans to hold Iraqis found with weapons or otherwise threatening the unstable peace.

The base sits on the edge of a Baghdad neighborhood called Al-Hurriyah. Across the river is a grand mosque where Saddam was seen walking through the streets during the invasion, just before he disappeared for nine months.

Idling ahead of Sherman is an open truck packed full of paratroopers from the 82nd about to embark on a late-night raid. Each one is armed to the teeth; some have machine guns, one has a shotgun strapped across his back. The soldiers like the rain because it will keep the curious indoors, but it also means they won't have any protective helicopters circling above.

There are more elements of the raiding party spread out through the area unseen, such as the Special Forces team that moves to their launch point in a handful of SUVs. Among the American raiders are Iraqi translators wearing ski masks to shield their identities from hostile countrymen. They carry bullhorns so they can yell orders into buildings.

Sherman has been on the radio with the other raid commanders making final preparations. He turns to his driver, a young sergeant, and describes the three types of cars that his scouts spotted earlier, cars full of armed men.

“If they come anywhere near you, stop them,” he tells the sergeant. “They're going to be armed so keep your weapon up. If you see anything that looks like a fucking weapon, start dealing.”

With that, the convoy rolls, with all lights off, ready to do violence while Baghdad sleeps.

Like Col. Gold, many of the soldiers in Iraq do the hearts-and-minds work of civil affairs by day and the rough work of raids and searches after the sun goes down. Sherman is one of Gold's battalion commanders. There's a cleric named Ahmed Hussein Al Dabash whom U.S. forces want to capture for questioning. Sherman says Dabash has been using his prayer calls at a mosque to incite violence between Shi'a and Sunni, and to prod his followers to attack Americans.

On Dec. 9, an explosion rocked a mosque in the area. Dabash, a Sunni, blamed the Shi'a, saying the mosque was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades. Sherman says an investigation revealed that the mosque was being used to make IEDs, and the explosion was an accidental bomb detonation.

The Americans know Dabash. Sherman and other officers have met with him repeatedly. In meetings Dabash was friendly and accommodating. But the Army has heard the prayer calls, which were not friendly or accommodating. Dabash is also suspected to have Al Qaeda ties, and, Sherman says, some “national level” intelligence people want to talk to him.

Dabash has followers and it's expected they won't give him up easily. Men are perched on Dabash's roof with automatic rifles and grenades. Sherman expects that when word gets out in the morning that the cleric is under American detention, the locals will “go nuts.”

It so happens that the neighborhood is home to the warehouse for the World Food Program, which feeds the city, and another warehouse, which provides medical supplies. Sherman is concerned that, post-raid, local anger will fall on the two facilities, so he has some of his tank units and psychological operations teams ready to “flood the zone” if Dabash is grabbed tonight.

Earlier in the evening, before raid preparations went into full swing, Sherman and his officers ate a dinner of Christmas leftovers and watched a basketball game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic. Sherman-who's going to go into the raid with two broken fingers in a cast, fingers he broke disarming a local citizen-talked about the raid over dinner. He expected the worst.

“This could get violent,” Sherman says. “We think they might fight for him.”

Dabash is believed to be in one of four locations, each one given a code name for the raid: Objectives Moe, Larry, Curly and Shemp. First they'll hit the house where the guards were spotted on the roof-on the assumption that he'd be there.

Unlike weapons searches, in which soldiers meticulously pick through a home, they'll get in and out fast-Dabash is there or he's not. During a pre-raid briefing with team leaders and Special Forces, Sherman tells them to move fast and be as silent as possible.

“If you gotta make noise to get in, make noise,” he says. “But you are most vulnerable in the street waiting to get in. You know this.”

The streets of Baghdad on a rainy night at 1 a.m. are quiet and empty. Maybe one or two cars pass as the raiders move toward Dabash's homes. Scouts are already up on the nearby roofs watching for movement when the 82nd troops pull onto Dabash's street. Sherman leaves his Humvee with the team medic, John Walker, and runs in quietly with the raiders.

They get into the first house without too much trouble, but Dabash is not there. One soldier comes out with an AK-47 across his back. While they're inside, a scout spots a man running across the roofs to a neighboring house. The troops break down that gate and find, parked in the driveway, one of the cars seen patrolling earlier. They break in and search it for weapons, but find none.

They try again at the next house and pull out two men who say they're just visiting for the night. And they pull out Dabash's brother. All three are cuffed and put into the back of the open truck, where they sit in the rain as the party moves to another part of the neighborhood.

It's hard to see much at 2 a.m. but the neighborhood appears to have some nice homes, with short, gated driveways and orange trees in the front yards. Around the corner, sewage flows down the street.

For all the noise the raiders make breaking down doors, no one comes outside. Women in some of the target houses scream and wail when the soldiers crash in, but neighbors do not rouse.

It turns out the raid missed Dabash by a half hour. Sherman calls a huddle of the raid leaders, including the Special Forces team. “He went into a mosque,” Sherman tells them. “There's not much we can do if goes into the mosque.”

Sherman turns to the Special Forces leader. “Can you get us in the mosque?” Sherman asks.

“Not really,” replies the Special Forces man.

“I didn't think so,” he says.

Based on a tip from the Special Forces team, they try one more house a few blocks away. It's close to 3 a.m. and still drizzling when they approach the place. The Iraqi translator yells through the bullhorn to open up. A man calls back, asking in Arabic what it's all about. The raid leader, Capt. Gabe Barton, tells the translator to tell the man it's Americans, and if he doesn't open up they'll break the door down. When he hesitates, they begin a countdown starting at 10. No one comes to the door, and a sergeant starts kicking at it. It's metal and it doesn't break, but the rattle is enough to bring the man and his wife and daughter to the door.

The females stand off to the side in front of the house crying and muttering while the man is questioned. When they realize he's not the right guy, Barton apologizes to the woman and girl and tries to calm them down.

Driving back to the base, Sherman takes what good from it he can, even though the big one got away. He says the other raiding parties did take in a former Iraqi general who's suspected in the insurgency, as well as two of Dabash's lieutenants.

“Well, three out of five is not so bad,” he says.

The two men who claimed to be just visiting were taken back to one of the first houses, un-cuffed and taken inside. All the addresses were recorded so claims officers can go back and reimburse the homeowners for broken locks and one or two smashed windows.

The brother, however, will spend some time in the old prison, which has not changed much since the Iraqis ran it, except its inmates are no longer tortured and executed. There were about 15 in there the night of the raid, either sleeping or hud