US: Returning Refugees May Destabilize Iraq

For the military, the prospect of refugees returning to reclaim houses long since occupied by others, particularly in Baghdad, threatened to destroy fragile security improvements.

"There is an element of the violence being down because segregation has already happened," said Col. William E. Rapp, a senior aide to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. "The violence is still at the fault lines, and we're sitting on those fault lines."