"Plain-speaking"

Coalition military leaders and Iraqis describe the situation in Fallujah; how the cooperation came about and how it's holding up. This is a fascinating story, still playing out, that is pregnant with potential for the future of the whole Iraq liberation effort. Yes, of course, you won't read about this in your hometown newspaper, at least not if your town is the same as mine. Not to blame the wire desk here: AP and NYT aren't anywhere near this story.

Gen Mattis: I wouldn't be happy to do that. The only way you build trust out here is for us to work together. We've seen it in Husaybah, where we had a dickens of a fight and literally a couple days later, things had changed... (tape garbled) RPGs. We're finding out people with IED making material. They way you break down distrust is by getting together and even if someone doesn't like the big issues, they don't like American foreign policy, we don't like certain things, when you work together, you sweat together, you try to focus on things where we have common cause, like sometimes the Iraqi police department, they don't have to like us.

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