The improvements in Iraq that both Coalition and local leaders have been touting of late apparently have reached a stage where the country’s beleaguered prime minister can pause long enough to tend to his own health. Iraqi TV reports that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is on his way to London for a medical checkup.

On the same day that U.S. military commander Gen. David H. Petraeus was telling reporters that offenses made possible by a surge in American and Iraqi forces means “levels of violence and casualties are significantly reduced and hope has been rekindled in many Iraqi communities,” local media reports say Maliki will be treated in England for exhaustion

According to newscasts on the popular Sharkiya television station, an unidentified person close to Maliki says the prime minister has been having problems with his blood pressure and diabetes and will undergo cardiac-related tests. Sharkiya, one of two stations carrying the report, has been at odds with Maliki government officials, some of whom accuse it of bias.

An Iraqi Christian named Qusay (declining to give the rest of his name), he said he is a guard at a private company and got the idea on Christmas day to borrow a friend's Santa outfit. Christmas is a big deal in Baghdad, where there are thousands of Christians and even some Muslims who mark the day. Santa here is called "Baba Noel." But Qusay was spreading more than good cheer, passing out the bibles and an Arabic DVD about Jesus he says he got from a church--proselytizing that could trigger a violent response on streets outside the protected Green Zone. "It's for my own joy and to make others happy," he said. Along the route, Green Zone checkpoint guards asked him to remove his white beard so they could check his ID.

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I rode a 4-wheeled version on a short trip with the Army. As it slowed to pick me up I felt like a small two-story building was lumbering up beside me. Its base sits high--maybe four feet--off the ground and the cabin is crowned on top by a gun turret surrounded by netting and bullet-proof glass. A heavy hydraulic ramp groaned open from the back and I made my way up five metal steps, the ramp closing behind me with a loud clap. The officer hosting me said his units don't use the trucks when riding inside Iraqi neighborhoods in his area because they're just too big. Streets aren't even that narrow in his part of the capital but they're usually lined with parked cars and electrical wires that sometimes get caught on Humvee antennae.

Once inside, I was surprised by the relative roominess. As wide as Humvees look from the outside, the interior is somehow chopped up by all the equipment and the standing room for the gunner. That barely leaves room for four seats at the corners (including one for the driver) where there's little space for your legs. The MRAP had two seats up front and four in back, which faced inward and left ample legroom across the aisle. The gunner has his own metal step to steady him in the turret.

I'm always puzzled by the user-unfriendly aspects of military vehicles and the dangers they pose before any battle is ever joined. Whether they're Humvees, Strykers or tanks, they seem filled with exposed steel edges, unpadded walls and supports. Maybe the lack of padding reduces the fire risk. The back of the big gun in an Abrams tank can crush your leg when it rises and falls if you're not sitting just right in back. Similarly, the MRAP's interior came with considerable risks, which the soldiers inside promptly explained. Seatbelts were a must, I was told. Otherwise, a normal bump could send you a couple feet in the air, slamming your (albeit helmeted) head into the thin padding of the armor ceiling. I noticed that all the seats were mounted on complicated systems of pulleys and thick nylon ropes. A soldier warned me to keep my feet away from a couple barely perceptible ridges across the passenger area floor. He wasn't sure what they did but had been warned they absorb shock and "can break your leg."

The stress, of course, is entirely on function. The interior is mostly metal in desert beige. There were boxes of ammunition for the gunner and an RPG launcher strapped against a wall. Along with written instructions on the side of the launch tube was an outline of a man with it mounted on his shoulder and the advice, "Fire like this." There was enough room for a round drinks cooler (like the kind they dump on winning football coaches) next to the driver and a leather football was pinned between a seat and the wall. They seemed like the only things inside that wouldn't maim someone who slammed against them in a wreck.

 
Essam Al-Sudani / AFP-Getty Images
Taking Control: Iraqi special forces outside Basra Palace

After four and half years, British troops officially handed over responsibility for Basra to the Iraqi government on Sunday. There wasn’t much fanfare: a handful of government officials, including National Security Adviser Mowaffaq Rubaie and Basra Governor Mohammed Waeli were on hand. British foreign secretary David Miliband flew out for the occasion, and Maj. Gen. Graham Binns, the commander who marched troops into Basra in spring 2003 (a coincidence he said was “especially poignant”), presided over the official handover. “Basra security forces have demonstrated that they are capable,” Binns said. He explained that the Brits are now “guests in your country and will act accordingly.”

But the Brits aren’t quite packing their bags yet. The 4,500 British troops currently in the province will stay on to give the Iraqi security forces backup through next spring, when they will drop down to 2,500. On paper, it doesn’t appear that the British soldiers will be seeing more combat. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would have to sign off if they were to provide backup for Iraqi forces in battle. In reality, though, it probably won’t be long before the Coalition troops are called up to fight: the rivalries between various Shiite groups have spilled over into bloody street fights several times this year. The violence in Basra has dropped noticeably in recent months, but the city is hardly secure. The official handover ceremony today was held at the Basra airport, which is miles away from the city center. A public ceremony in the city would have been a tempting target for the rocket men and mortar teams that pounded British bases during the summer. Rubaie acknowledged the unstable situation after the ceremony. “We have huge challenges ahead of us,” he said. “We have yet to declare victory and [say] this is the end of the fight. We are a long way from that.”

There are at least a dozen militias in Basra, but the group that some Iraqi officials point to as the spoilers are the supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. It’s widely believed that Sadr’s Mahdi Army controls the police in the city. It’s not hard to understand why these rivalries have turned into such a bloody struggle. Not far away from the Basra airport, gas flares from massive oil fields burn night and day. The oil fields around Basra provide a huge share, nearly 90 percent by some estimates, of the government’s income. But there are more arcane matters that the Shiite groups fight about. The Sadrists and a splinter faction called Fadhila see themselves as an indigenous Iraqi Arab movement. They ridicule the dominant Shiite party, the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, as Iranian stooges because many of the group’s top members, who are now senior officials in the Iraqi government, spent years in exile in Iran.

America lost one of its most effective and colorful Iraqi allies in a roadside bomb blast Sunday. Gen. Qais Hamza Aboud, police chief for the Babil province, was killed in the midday attack on his convoy. Qais, who American officers sometimes called "The Godfather," was a Shiite Muslim known for cracking down on Shiite militias and criminal gangs as well as going after Sunni insurgents. His brash charisma--including his salty language and affinity for Jack Daniels whiskey--was recently described in a story about Iraqi warlords by NEWSWEEK's Kevin Peraino.

Qais had consolidated control of the security services in the province, a key crossroads region south of Baghdad. The former car salesman had used American backing to build his 800-man Scorpion force and assassins had already targeted him several times. He also faced down powerful figures in the central government as he took on militias with powerful friends.

His death shakes the region and the American forces' strategy there. The area is known as a transit point for Al Qaida militants into Baghdad and a breeding ground for Shiite militias. Sunday evening, a curfew was placed on the city of Hilla, the provincial capital near where the attack took place. Just hours before the attack, U.S. officers cited Qais as a symbol of progress. "Right now I see amazing momentum at the local level. Let's just focus in on Gen. Qais and the Babil police," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who praised him for going after insurgents no matter their sect. Gen. Qais will be a hard man to replace.