"I hope the Americans stay here for a long, long time"

I think that a lot more Iraqis feel this way than John Murtha, Barack Obama, Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi would ever admit.

"Al-Qaeda are the worst criminals on earth," he said standing before large posters of his slain relatives displayed among others killed by Al-Qaeda at a memorial set up at the local community centre.

"I hope they never come back. We now just want to farm in peace. I hope the Americans stay here for a long, long time," he said.

And,

"When Al-Qaeda was here it was impossible to farm," said the jolly-faced farmer from under an orange cap while taking time out from his labours to visit his cousin's newly-reopened grocery store on a dusty rural road.

"They cut the power so we couldn't pump water," said Wadi. "We couldn't buy fuel. They would shoot at anyone they saw in the fields. They kidnapped and murdered many people. They destroyed life here."

The last crops he planted -- in 2005 -- withered and died because he couldn't irrigate them after Al-Qaeda arrived in force.

In the next two years he and his family of seven managed to survive only thanks to their dairy herd and by stealthily smuggling milk off to markets in Baghdad under the noses of the jihadists.

"Unlike most of the other people in Arab Jubur, we were never attacked by Al-Qaeda. We kept a very low profile," said Wadi, a giant of a man whose profile is anything but low. "We all survived, God be praised."

Not as fortunate was Mohammed Ali Jassim al-Juburi, 54, a former sergeant in the army of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein who returned to his farmlands in Arab Jubur after losing his post in the aftermath of the US invasion in 2003.

Two of his brothers were killed by Al-Qaeda jihadists in a drive-by shooting while his son was among 12 youths killed in an ambush in December.

"After they killed them they dragged their bodies behind vehicles through the streets, proclaiming them to be spies," said Juburi. "My son's body was mutilated."