Posted on 05/15/2004 11:04:59 AM PDT by gandalftb
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - The Iraqi general leading a force that controls Falluja said he had no plans to disarm insurgents, defying demands by U.S. commanders who appointed him and raising tension with Marines encircling the restive city.
Mohammed Latif, a former intelligence officer who now heads the Falluja Brigade, also told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday that U.S. forces should go home if they wanted peace.
"Weapons are not the problem. They are easy to collect," he said. "What we need to do is rebuild our country. There is no need for American soldiers. I am sure the Americans would be happy to go to their homes."
Latif's comments came after he held lengthy talks with Major-General James Mattis, the commander of the 1st Marines Division encircling Falluja.
The two appeared to have markedly different perspectives on how the Falluja operation was going.
But Mattis, repeating comments from other U.S. commanders, sounded much less at ease and said time was running out.
"We have to get done what we came to get done. I am always a bit impatient," he said. "We want it all: peace, the weapons and the foreign fighters dead or out of here. Negotiations are going fine but they can always go faster."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Good post, spot on. But, this fight ain't over by a damn sight.
We never had peace. We never finished the war.
We thought that we didn’t need a WWII like investment and thought that we could compromise our way through, much like Vietnam.
"The last 10% is tricky, Latif and the locals are clever and shifty, they don't care if we crater Al-Jawlan, they know we have $80 million to put in their pockets to rebuild it."
Here is the other interesting tidbit: That part of town is the poorest section of town, with narrow streets, a nightmare to go through in a storm operation.
It is also the *kurdish* section. The insurgents went in and abused the kurdish locals.
We could perhaps see how it goes and try to replace Latif if he is not fully cooperative, while not 'breaking' the whole agreement.
On balance, even with the heavy weapons not turned in, this is more successful than unsuccessful. The 'resistance' is not resisting.
The most commonly given reason is that we bowed to political pressure from the Iraqis. However, a different explanation is possible. Perhaps we decided Al Sadr had to be dead or defanged first, thus reducing the "outrage" factor in other parts of Iraq when the job is finished in Fallujah."
I believe that our military understood, correctly, that the real challenge in Iraq to our success is political not military, that we had to create conditions FOR IRAQIS TO BE WILLING TO STAND UP FOR IRAQI DEMOCRACY.
Our willingness to put Baathists in charge of forces created an interesting reaction: All the Iraqi saddam-haters realized that WE MIGHT GIVE THEM BACK BAATHISM if they didnt get their act together.
We have put Iraqis on the spot, and in the process have accelerated the democratization process.
Indeed. I havent been keeping stats, but I sure have noticed we dont here as many "X troops killed today by a roadside bomb" anymore. Good news.
"Pity we can't brag about our having won the Battle of Falluja. Most of those who sought to kill us are taking a well-deserved dirt nap."
Brag away. :-)
Meanwhile, the America-haters will pretend somehow all those graves in Fallujah filled by Marine snipers were Fallujah's "innocents" killed by incredibly bad shots.
The insurgents are not resisting because it’s politically impossible for us to attack until they do. They’re playing this perfectly!
Also, there is virtually nothing to resist. They won. Next they’ll rebuild, and be a safe haven for resistance to the elected government, and totally untouchable.
The Kurds were chased away weeks ago, there is no Kurdish area.
I don't trust these blog stories. Propaganda.
You've nailed it.
It’s called compromise. Yes, it’s tricky.
" The insurgents are not resisting ... "
Their motives are least relevent.
The fact of pacification is most relevant.
Only about 2,000 Kurds ever lived in Al-Jawlan, they were mainly very poor refugees from Syria. My understanding is that they all left because of the abuse by the Syrian rebels who hated them and because of the fighting. Most are in refugee camps west of Baghdad to be resettled in Kurdistan.
It’s payback for quilting.
"Also, there is virtually nothing to resist."
An Iraqi brigade under Marine command and 2 marine contingents in the area. Plenty to resist if they wanted to stop the inevitable process of democracy in Iraq.
Belmont Club ~~The Rumsfeld-Myers Mission
_________________________________________________________________________________________
WASHINGTON, May 14, 2004 – Two new military commands will stand up in Iraq May 15, replacing the current coalition military organization.
Multinational Corps Iraq and Multinational Force Iraq will replace Combined Joint Task Force 7.
Coalition military spokesman Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, at a Baghdad news conference today, said the change addresses a concern that a combined joint task force headquarters was not sufficient to handle the military workload in Iraq efficiently.
"It's certainly more than a formality," he said. "It is trying to get the proper command structure for the days, weeks and months ahead."
Kimmitt explained that Multinational Corps Iraq will focus on the tactical fight -- the day-to-day military operations and the maneuvering of the six multinational divisions on the ground. Army Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz will command the corps. Meanwhile, Multinational Force Iraq will focus on more strategic aspects of the military presence in Iraq, such as talking with sheiks and political leaders, and on training, equipping and fielding Iraqi security forces.
Multinational Force Iraq "will certainly be involved in the tactical operations, but only to the extent that they have somewhat of an operational and strategic impact on this country," Kimmitt said. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, current CJTF 7 commander who will head MNF Iraq, already has been working the strategic issues, and the new command structure will enable him to focus more of his time and energy in that direction, Kimmitt said.
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And note this from "Wretched" :
The most striking thing about this new command arrangement is that appears to be an end run around the Coalition Provisional Authority, a shifting of at least some political functions away from a State Department structure directly into one directly under the DOD. For those who saw the events in April as a defeat for Rummy and a discredit to the DOD policy, this evidence suggests that the President may see things the other way. At first glance it is a high level endorsement of the kinds of negotiations which have transpired at Fallujah at Najaf rather than their condemnation. This reading may not be borne out by subsequent clarifications. But it certainly looks that way.
I agree, it took 6 years of pacification in Germany before there was an election. We fought remnants of the Nazis and took thousands of casualties. The holdouts called themselves "Werewolves" and were mainly old school SS.
I guess then the motives of each Palestinian cease fire agreed to by the Israelis was “irrelevant”, only the temporary lull for rebuilding.
My father told me that, "Any fool can learn from his mistakes. If you’re smart, you’ll learn from the mistakes of others." We need to learn from Israeli mistakes.
There is no substitute for victory, certainly not a convenient ceasefire promoted as “pacification”.
We have a difference of opinion on this that won’t be resolve here. Time will tell.
Please, they’re under the “direct” command of someone who says there are no insurgents, no foreign fighters and no need to confiscate heavy weapons. Why the heck would they resist that?
Unlike Iraq, we defeated Germany. We went into every neighborhood and committed whatever was necessary. The difference is as profound as night and day.
I think the reorganization is due to the ineffectiveness of CentCom/Abizaid and CJTF7/Sanchez in their overall strategies and lack of control of Abu Ghraib. Their tactical control is being taken away without replacing them and making our leadership look confused and uncertain. We now will have a winning the war group and a winning the peace group, what was needed all along.
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