Posted on 04/30/2004 7:29:41 PM PDT by blam
Saddam's man takes over in Fallujah
By Toby Harnden in Baghdad
(Filed: 01/05/2004)
A former senior general in Saddam Hussein's army made a triumphant entry into the besieged city of Fallujah yesterday and was greeted by flag-waving locals celebrating the departure of US marines.
Maj Gen Jassem Mohammed Saleh, who headed Saddam's infantry forces, is to take over as head of what American officials are calling the "1st battalion of the proposed Fallujah Brigade".
Maj Gen Jassem Mahmood Saleh arriving in Fallujah This is a new force to police the Sunni stronghold.
His appearance came as two marines were killed and six wounded in the city when their patrol was attacked by a suicide car bomber.
The new Iraqi battalion will have up to 1,100 men, many of them former members of Saddam's forces and some insurgents who have been fighting the marines.
American commanders argued that there had been no deal with the insurgents and the marines leaving the city were not handing over control but simply "repositioning" their forces.
The locally-brokered deal came after President George W Bush decided the political risks of fighting for Fallujah street by street were too great. Abandoning much bellicose rhetoric about wiping out the foreign fighters and Saddam loyalists, US commanders decided to allow at least some of these elements to police the city with their blessing.
"This is not a withdrawal, it is not a retreat," insisted Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, the senior US military spokesman in Iraq. "But as long as we continue to see progress, we will continue to pursue the political track."
He said the new force would start to man checkpoints. Gareth Bayley, a British coalition spokesman, said: "Talk of a peace deal is over the top. What we have here is a tactical change."
Tanks and American troops left Fallujah after pulling down barbed wire defences around the soft drinks factory where they had set up a base for the past three weeks.
Up to 80 marines remained but were expected to withdraw to a base outside Fallujah last night.
Many ordinary marines said they did not believe the initiative would work and it could endanger their lives when they had to revert to the "plan A" of a full-scale offensive to take Fallujah.
"Honestly, I don't think they're going to be able to do it," said Cpl Elias Chavez, 28.
"We had the insurgents cordoned off, they couldn't go anywhere, we had a chance to get them. Now they can flee wherever they want and we're still going to have to deal with them."
He said the new force, largely made up of Fallujah residents, would be unlikely to apprehend or clamp down on anti-coalition fighters.
By leaving without defeating the insurgents, their deployment since April 5, following the killing and mutilation of four US defence contractors, "was a waste of time, of resources and of lives".
"Everyone feels the same, especially those who know someone who was killed."
L Cpl Julius Wright, 20, said: "Now it's going to get worse. We pulled out when we should of gone in."
Gen Saleh shook hands with marine commanders before he entered the city, which is thought to house 2,000 insurgents.
Gen Kimmitt said he had little knowledge of the general's background but he had been "initially vetted".
The appointment is a stunning reversal of US policy, which was to exclude all Ba'ath Party members who held senior posts under Saddam.
But Gen Kimmitt said the new Fallujah force would be "completely integrated" with US forces and "under operational control" of marine commanders.
"Marines will continue to maintain a strong presence in and around Fallujah. We are certainly not withdrawing from Fallujah."
The partitioning of Iraq is beginning.
The general's best interests are served by succeeding, and in putting down the bad guys.
Saddam's man takes over shot dead in Fallujah.
This is the part that really bugs me.
Bush ,like his father, may very well be a one term president. If that happens, fingers will be pointed everywhere, except the Whitehouse.
In the new Iraqi forces, care has been taken to have the three top positions in every unit divided between a Sunni, a Shiite and a Kurd.
It would be expected that, if there is trouble in any particular region of Iraq, the senior Iraqi officer would belong to the predominant ethnicity of the region.
The general's best interests are served by stopping the violence. His best interests are also served by:
1) preserving his kinder
2) strengthening the idea that Bathists are well suited to rule "Sunniland"
3) that Iraq can't be ruled without the support of the previous regeim
4) that the "troublemakers" are better dispersed into "Shialand" to cause trouble for the US in the south
Your perception is wrong. This is a Marine plan through and through. Time will tell whether it was a good move, but I sure wish people would withhold judgement until it has time to succeed or fail.
Yet what is the fallback position? There isn't one. Suppose this doesn't work? If it doesn't work, we will find out in a supremely ugly way and have to do the mashing we possibly should have done from the beginning. The Baathists' goal can only be to see the US effort fail. We have already seen the reluctance of the Iraqis to put down their internal insurrection. Now we are apparently going to re-subscribe to that failed policy.
Our game plan has theoretically been to show vs kill: Show the Iraqis the benefits of cooperation = our view of civilization. My concern is that we have been played---by the sub-aboriginal killing of the four contractors, which drew us into the Fallujah mess to begin with. I think we should have attended to the clear disruptive potential of this troubled zone (the so-called Sunni Triangle) of Iraq from the beginning.
The one thing we have successfully shown the Iraqis is the US attention span. I suspect we have focused on good deeds (waterworks, elec power, schools) which are things that take a considerable amount of time to bring to fruition even in a non-war zone, in a society where brutality has been the respected/feared force for centuries.
At least you'll admit that. Let the military experts in Iraq do their job. They are damn good at it. They deserve your support.
Ok but where's the beef?
No mention of the Shia or the Kurd in the press thus far. You'd think that this point would be impressed on both the US press for our domestic consumptiom and in southern Iraq to calm the fears of the Sunni.
My guess is that this is an all Bathits command because of the political considerations in the area.
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