Vow to fight raises question: How long will Iraq's calm last?

"Are my people aware of what's happening to me?

"Ask the river, does it still remember me?

"And the people, do they still hold their noses high?

&Mdash; Abu Izzuddin, a recently released Iraqi detainee

GARMA, Iraq — Mohammed walked in disbelief through the rich green grass that carpets the farm behind his modest family home. For more than three years, he'd seen no green, no hanging branches in the orchards near his home in Garma, in Anbar province in western Iraq.

For more than three years, he'd worn a yellow jumpsuit in the U.S. detention center of Bucca in the hot desert outside Basra, hundreds of miles from home. He waited for his family's rare visits, and his heart lifted.

Between those visits, there was darkness. He was convinced that he'd never see this familiar place, his fiancee or his family again.

"Sometimes I ask myself, 'Am I truly here or am I dreaming?' " he said.

Even with his release, however, the 23-year-old never surrendered his principles, though he learned what he had to say in order to be freed: "Yes, I fought you. No, I won't do it again."

In America, the U.S. "surge" of additional troops to Baghdad is heralded as a success, and President Barack Obama has said he'll draw down American forces in Iraq and turn his attention to Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Iraq, however, what the U.S.-led invasion and occupation started is far from over.

Most Iraqis think that today's lower level of violence is the eye, not the end, of the storm, and that the decisive power struggles are just beginning. The U.S.-backed Iraqi government is widely regarded as an undeserving group of exiles who returned to Iraq on the backs of American tanks.

Over the weekend, fighting broke out between Sunni Muslims and Iraq's Shiite Muslim-led security forces, and it's unclear whether the security forces, still heavily backed by U.S. air and ground support, are loyal to their nation rather than their sect, tribe, town or ethnicity.

Although the Sunni insurgency that earlier had battled U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces and killed thousands of civilians is weakened, Mohammed is one of many Iraqis who still believe in what he calls the muqawima, the resistance. He always will.

Mohammed is one of the thousands of detainees who're being released from U.S. detention centers as America prepares to withdraw forces from Iraq. There are about 13,400 detainees in U.S.-run prisons, and on average 50 are released each day. Some are guilty of crimes, others are innocent, many have never been afforded due process and some have become radicalized by their time in prison.

A U.S. military study of 138,000 Iraqi detainees found that economics motivated 70 percent of them and local issues another 20 percent; fewer than 10 percent were Islamic radicals.

Iraqi officials worry that releasing detainees will trigger a new wave of violence. In some cases, local police are using vigilante law and killing people who've been released from U.S. detention centers, according to residents in Anbar. Most are too afraid to talk about it.

Mohammed came home late last year still determined to resist. He has one rule: Target only American troops, never civilians.

However, the resistance, a movement that he believes is the only way to restore dignity to the Iraqi people, was damaged by zealots who used a warped interpretation of Islam to justify killing Iraqis by the thousands. Damaged by the fatigue and terror that the sectarian war of 2006 and 2007 instilled in every Iraqi heart. Damaged by money and damaged by greed.