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E-mailMarines soften Fallujah stance
Concerned about the repercussions an attack could generate across Iraq and the Arab world, senior U.S. military and civilian officials have decided to try to confront a band of hard-core Sunni Muslim insurgents, who have effectively taken over Fallujah, by having Marines conduct patrols in the city alongside Iraqi security forces.
The new strategy, reached in consultation with the White House over the weekend, is an effort by U.S. officials to avoid a military incursion that could be fraught with urban combat, civilian casualties and a wave of retribution strikes outside Fallujah that may further poison relations between Iraqis and U.S. occupation forces.
"A military solution is not going to be the solution here unless everything else fails," said Maj. Gen. James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, which is responsible for securing Fallujah and other parts of western Iraq. U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Baghdad, said efforts to deal with the insurgency in Fallujah had shifted to "a political track."
The strategy shift is the latest in a series of U.S. policy reversals that serve to placate Iraq's Sunnis, a once-powerful minority whose post-war disenfranchisement has fueled attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces. Last week, the U.S. occupation authority announced it would hire back some senior military officers and teachers who were dismissed by the authority because of membership in former president Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baath Party.
U.S. military commanders and civilian leaders have also opted to take a similar approach with militiamen loyal to a radical Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr. Although U.S. soldiers have mobilized outside the holy city of Najaf, where al-Sadr and many of his militiamen have congregated, Kimmitt said there were "no time lines" for the soldiers to enter the city.
U.S. officials continue to rely on Iraqi interlocutors to persuade al-Sadr to demobilize his illegal militia, whose members have repeatedly attacked U.S. forces and foreign troops stationed in central Iraq. "We would like to obtain a final agreement in Najaf," Kimmitt said.
Together, the latest approaches to dealing with Fallujah and Najaf represent a new effort by the U.S. military and civilian leadership in Iraq to address two volatile problems without force and avoid the sort of violent confrontations that occurred earlier this month, when Marines fought running battles in Fallujah and al-Sadr's militiamen skirmished with soldiers in Baghdad and across central Iraq.
"This is the way we want to do it," Mattis said. "We didn't come here to fight."
If Marines patrolling the city are fired upon, Mattis said they would shoot back and reassess the joint patrols or whether more aggressive military action was warranted.
"If we do not gain control of Fallujah using joint patrols then we've got to look at other options," he said.
Some military officials have voiced private skepticism about the patrols, saying they expect the insurgents to fire upon the Marines. "We need to engage them on our own terms," one officer said.
Marine commanders in and around Fallujah had expected to receive orders over the weekend to mount a comprehensive attack on insurgents in the city, who Marines believe are a combination of foreign fighters, indigenous Islamic extremists and Saddam loyalists. Marine officers estimate there are several hundred insurgents in Fallujah, located about 35 miles west of Baghdad.
After a mob in the city killed and mutilated four U.S. security contractors, Marines encircled Fallujah, a dusty city of 200,000 along the Euphrates River, and engaged in intense firefights with insurgents. After three days, U.S. commanders declared a cease-fire in an attempt to negotiate a solution.
Although a group of civic leaders had agreed to a peace deal with U.S. military commanders and civilian officials on April 19, the local leaders have failed to fulfill a key element of the agreement -- getting the insurgents to surrender heavy weapons. Wednesday, police officers delivered a pickup truck filled with rusty and largely inoperative weapons, not the modern equipment military officers had wanted. The lack of compliance with the arms hand-over prompted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officials to suggest that offensive action could resume on short notice.
Rumsfeld and the other military officials questioned whether the local leaders who signed the peace agreement had enough influence over the insurgents to compel them to turn over weapons and cease hostilities. If the leaders could not deliver, the military officials said the Marines would be left with no option but to resume offensive operations against the insurgents.
But Saturday, with Marine commanders preparing attack plans, top American officials helicoptered into a sprawling base outside Fallujah for last-ditch meetings. The participants included the U.S. administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, and the overall commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid. Iraqi political leaders, who have been negotiating with civic leaders in Fallujah, implored the American officials to give the peace deal more time, according to a U.S. official familiar with the discussions. The Iraqis insisted that many in the city who had fought against the Marines earlier in the month had promised to cease attacks but did not want to give up their weapons, the official said.
Mindful of the impact of another attack on Fallujah and confronted with intense lobbying from Iraqi politicians, Bremer and Abizaid opted to try to implement joint patrols to give the local leaders a final chance to demonstrate whether they can control the city, the official said. "If they can keep the bad guys from shooting, that's great," the official said. "If the bad guys start shooting at the Marines, then we're going to have to go in with more force."
The decision not to attack immediately and to attempt the joint patrols was so sensitive that it was made in consultation with the White House, the official said.
In Washington, a senior Bush administration official said the decision to rely for now on patrols rather than an attack was based partly on the concern of President Bush's aides about fallout from an invasion in the Arab world.
"It's a situation that calls for precision and some measure of patience -- not unlimited patience, however," said the official, who declined to be identified in order to speak more candidly. "You want to be prepared to take strong action on short notice against those who've been identified, and do what's necessary to subdue them. On the other hand, you don't want to misfire prematurely in such a way that you temporarily make the local situation worse and provide images that incite a broader reaction."
Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, the commander of a Marine battalion in Fallujah, said he planned to begin joint patrols Thursday, after conducting three days of training for civil-defense troops and police officers. Despite pledges of stability from local leaders, Byrne said he would not take any chances: The Marine unit conducting the joint patrol, he said, will have air support and "will be prepared for anything they might run into."
Iraqi security forces interviewed in Fallujah yesterday were apprehensive about the idea of patrolling with the Marines, a collaboration several felt would mean a greater risk of attack. "I don't feel safe because the Americans are not safe," said police Capt. Jassim Mohammed Abid. "They're going to get shot at. They can't guarantee safety for themselves, so how can they guarantee safety for me?"
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