In-country chaos is not equal-opportunity:

Hundreds of U.S. soldiers raided a northern town on Tuesday in a bid to smash a crime ring wanted for murder, gunrunning and a terrorist attack on a police station that killed an American soldier earlier this month.

[...]

"Their primary focus is probably criminal activity, but they have attacked coalition forces through direct and indirect means," [Col. David] Hogg told The Associated Press. "As long as [criminal leader Lateef] is in place we will not be able to establish the conditions for the Iraqi police to establish law and order in the area."

Just why is this mobster on the streets?

Lateef was imprisoned and serving multiple life sentences for murder until Saddam Hussein granted amnesty to all prisoners in October as the United States ratcheted up its case for invading Iraq, according to U.S. intelligence officers.

Only so many hardened gangsters and Ba'athists are alive in Iraq; because Allied forces are operating militarily and not as law enforcement, few domestic obstacles prevent them from shattering the most active and destructive groups. Slow and steady - with luck, the only threats to Iraqi security will be "jihadists" who, from Iraqi accounts, stick out like sore thumbs.