Attack on Iraqi Brigade Shatters Fallouja Calm

LA Times ^ | 6/10/04 | Ashraf Khalil and Edmund Sanders

[gandalftb]

BAGHDAD — A mortar attack Wednesday shattered several weeks of relative calm in Fallouja, wounding 12 members of a special Iraqi brigade created last month to end the bloody standoff between U.S. forces and insurgents in the restive city.

The violence underscored security concerns as the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority prepares to return sovereignty to Iraqis in three weeks.

In Fallouja, attackers firing mortars and small arms struck a brigade led by former Iraqi army officers that had been brought in specifically to appease the local population. It was the first attack against the unit, which comprises many of the same residents who battled U.S. troops this spring.

The attack in Fallouja represents the first major test of the new brigade, which took control after U.S. Marines moved out of the city last month. Creation of the unit, led by former Gen. Mohammed Latif, allowed residents to police their city, theoretically without the perceived taint of collaboration with the Americans that marks forces such as the Iraqi police and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.

Although the area around Fallouja has seen intermittent attacks against U.S. forces and police stations in the last month, the Fallouja brigade had remained largely unscathed. Now at issue is how the unit will respond to an attack possibly carried out by fellow residents, and whether U.S. Marines will be redeployed on the outskirts of the city.

On Wednesday, the Marines sealed off the eastern and southern entrances to the city with barbed wire and concrete barriers. U.S. tanks reportedly ventured past their checkpoint on the western edge of the city, then pulled back.

A Marine spokesman denied that U.S. forces were preparing to enter the city. "We are not conducting any offensive operations in Fallouja," Maj. T.V. Johnson told Agence France-Presse news service.

[gandalftb]

The 3-400 old school foreign muj and about 700 local toughs are openly calling for the Marines to come back, they refuse to exfiltrate and the locals are paralyzed.

On News/Activism 06/07/2004 8:32:58 AM PDT #30 of 56

BTW, things are heating up in Falluja, the ICDC/Falluja Brigade caved into the rebels who are now "helping" man some of the checkpoints. No reporters are allowed into the city, not even Muslims, due to muj paranoia. IGC reps are heavily escorted in and out fast, no touring. The dozen or so original muj groups are still there and have between 300-400 foreign muj. As I posted earlier, they want a last stand. There is a lot of mutual distrust between them though as we have infiltrated them with locals, paid for info.

The ICDC/FB are very nervous, won't sleep at their bases/posts in the city but have set up tent bivouacs outside town and away from Marine camps. The very few returning residents are being told to stay out or are steered to other villages. Al-Jawlan is completely dominated by muj who are collecting arms and fighters. Local imams are the only local authority over the foreign muj and have gone Taliban on the city. Local sheikhs are holed up with their fighters in their own compounds and are laying low, not wanting to mix it up with the Marines again. They are helping by not allowing the muj generally outside al-Jawlan.

We'll let them build up until the ICDC/FB says uncle, get all the intel we need and them snuff 'em. Night mortar and rocket attacks are starting up again, been very quiet for 3 weeks.

[Jeff Head]

It was the first attack against the unit, which comprises many of the same residents who battled U.S. troops this spring.

If true, then this is the most rediculous thing I have ever heard...we "win" by letting the enemy combatants patrol the city we were trying to pacify and then call that a victory?

We have won nothing if this is the case and our enemies are laughing at us and will be embolden by it.

[Rokke]

Actually, I don't consider this a bad thing. Nothing like getting a cheapshot to your kidneys to help you figure out who your closest enemy is. Maybe this will give the FB a little more motivation to stop watching and start shooting.

[bayourod]

Is there another site that has this story w/o having to register? Someone already registered under the name "Freeper" but failed to use "freeper" as the password.

[bayourod]

"we "win" by letting the enemy combatants patrol the city we were trying to pacify and then call that a victory? "

It's their city. It's their job to protect their own citizens from foreign terrorists. Let them try. If they try and fail, then we help, but eventually they have to govern their own nation.

[gandalftb]

Registration is really easy and quick. I posted all of the article that pertained to Falluja, the rest was about the Kurds and the pipeline sabotage.

[B4Ranch]

This is just what we discussed about three weeks ago. Give them time to re-arm, rest and resupply then they would come back out and start the killing allover again.

When I was in Nam, we would see the VC fighting with 20 rounds of ammo. LBJ would would authorize a cease fire for the damn peace talks and the VC would come back with 100 rounds of ammo at the next firefights.

Talk about a proven method of how to extend combat. We know how to do it. Yes siree. But hey it's only a couple of troops dying each day. No much to be concerned about.

[bayourod]

Well, obviously you know of which you speak. What's your analysis of the big picture?

Does Fallouja present an opportunity for a great military hero (ala Sam Houston) to rise to national legendary status and provide a rallying flag for Iraqi self-determination?

Or is Gen. Mohammed Latif just a pension seeker?

[Jeff Head]

Sorry, I categorically disagree...otherwise, if we are going to let the people we are fignting control the city streets, we should not be there.

But we should be there because the mission is right, the mission to defeat Saddam, the Ba'athists and the terrorists and free Iraq.

So, in that mission, when we are battling them to defeat the insurgents who are threatening the mission of our forces, threatening the peace, and killing our people...you do not put the enemy themselves down by letting them control the very city you are fighting to pacify.

That is not victory.

We give the city to people who support us after we have defeated and pacified the enemy.

According to this article, and other reports, we gave it to the very people we were fighting before that...and that's very premature and that's very dangerous.

[Jeff Head]

See my Post 9 bro.

[B4Ranch]

Response to #5 & #9

When we were in Fallouja fighting the insurgents, three weeks ago, we had them where we wanted them, in a position of "no resupply".

That means when one of the insurgents was wounded, he required the care of another insurgent which removed two men from the forward line. As they ran out of water, ammo, food, medical supplies, you name it and there position could only get worse, never stronger.

It didn't matter what their young cleric said, life was going to get shorter if they didn't surrender. Instead what did we do? We followed the guidance of other Iraqi clerics who were afraid of the facts coming out for all to see and we pulled back. A cleric isn't God and 50 Iraqis are not going to defeat 1000 American soldiers.

Oh boy, did I ever cuss our Generals out that day. I had seen the same position many times. Fight until you had the enemy with only two options, either surrender or we'll kill you. Then the politicians adds in a crazy third option, pullback.

The recent deaths of special Iraqi brigade men are the results of our pullback. Yes, the Iraqi clerics and our Generals knew this was going to happen. These men had been in combat before. They knew what happens when you pullback and give the enemy a chance to re-supply.

I don't care if the pullback is for political reasons, religious reasons or what, we should never have allowed the insurgents to re-supply unless we wanted to extend the combat and suffer the losses of men.

It is a sorry situation that soldiers are only expendable tools and the political leaders get used to losing these tools too easily. It has been this way from Day One.

We can debate forever whether American troops should be in Iraq. Remember if it was your brother, son, husband or father who dies over there, that will have a strong part in determining your political views and your acceptance of the next combat incidence no matter where in the world it occurs.

Rarely do we ever hear of a General who actually cries when his men are killed. That is because the General knows they are just tools (cannon fodder) for a political goal and he was willing to take the job of determining how many should be killed each day. Generals don't resign, they retire with all the benefits that the dead men deserved.

I am not anti war but I am strongly against extending combat any longer than necessary to defeat an enemy. To win a war, be prepared to lose men. Just make sure the enemies losses are much greater than your own.

IMO The pullback was wrong and it will remain so in my mind until I die.

[Southack]

"To win a war, be prepared to lose men. Just make sure the enemies losses are much greater than your own."

You do realize that this one attack (in the last month) was Fallujah bad guys killing local Iraqi's, yes?!

And that's bad, how??

I mean, friendly Iraqis aren't going to have us around baby-sitting them forever; the sooner they learn to police their own country, the better.

In the meantime, no Americans were involved or harmed by that single attack (and there has been calm since then).

Frankly, this achieves all of our goals. The Americans are viewed as more rational and friendly by the local FB. The bad guys inside Fallujah are viewed with more suspicion and contempt. Eyes are opened as to this being the locals' job to to control, with bad results if they fall asleep at the switch...and no American casualties are suffered in the process. Can't blame America for anything here, either.

Repeat as necessary nationwide.

[B4Ranch]

If we hadn't pulled back we would have made the enemy surrender or die. Then we would have collected all of his ammo and weapons preventing him from fighting again in Fallujah.

The Iraqi men, the ones on our side wouldn't have died. They would be available to help us kill more insurgents!

[Jeff Head]

The entire issue here is which Iraqis were given the job of patrolling the streets and how they came to do it.

If it were a group of sympathetic, friendly Iraqis who are committed to the mission of a free Iraq...you would not get an arguement from me. But the reports indicate that we gave Fallujah in essence to the very people we were fighting...the outcome of that foolishness is unbeliebavly easy to predict.

[Southack]

"the reports indicate that we gave Fallujah in essence to the very people we were fighting...the outcome of that foolishness is unbeliebavly easy to predict."

Then why do you lament them killing each other as detailed in this article?

[Jeff Head]

Because the area remains a hot bed for insurgency and fights against our mission of a free Iraq that has not been truly pacified. Better to be done with pacifying the place and making a statment to all such.

...and we don't have to go in street to street and lose a lot of our people to do that.

Give them 48 hours to either turn over all insrugents, surrender unconditionally or flee the city. Then, if they do not turn them over, or surrender, let Arc Lite and MOAB do the talking for us...until the city is rubble and the insurgents and any who abett them are dead.

These other options are only viewed as mini-victories for the terrorists/insurgents and will end up emboldening them IMHO.

Anyhow, that's my own opinion and I know it doesn't fit the PC way we are currently handling the situation.

[Southack]

"Because the area remains a hot bed for insurgency and fights against our mission of a free Iraq that has not been truly pacified. Better to be done with pacifying the place and making a statment to all such."

Is your personal goal to pacify 100% of Iraq?

Because my desired result is that a stable, friendly Iraq takes back control of its own country, even if it has to deal with some small levels of remaining resistance.

There's an old 80-20 rule that says you can usually get 80% of what you want with only 20% of your max effort...but that getting that last 20% will cost you your other 80%.

I see that rule as applying to the remaining holdouts in various places like Sadr City and Fallujah.

Do we really want to expend the extra effort, take the extra casualties, and inflict the extra damage onto the local civilian population, or would we be better off leaving a few small problem areas for the new Iraqi government to cut its teeth on?

[Jeff Head]

No need to. In case you hadn;t noticed, despite what the liberal media wants you to believe, 90%+ of Iraq is already pacified, and they did it willingly, glad we are there.

The goal is to pacify those areas like Fallujah that are still up in arms beofre the turn over...and like I said, we don't have to take a bunch of casualties to do it.

IMHO that would be the best thing for us...and for the new government.

But...I've said my piece here. Carry on.

[bayourod]

I think you're right. This may have been the wrong time and wrong place, but at some point we need to bring our troops home and let the Iraqis government fight it's own battles against the insurgents/rebels/terrorists.

Hopefully we won't go back into Fallouja.

[B4Ranch]

The last thing I am promoting is that we stay in Iraq. I want our troops home ASAP but I don't want to leave an enemy behind who could turn the tables with a few good moves. When the Iraqi army is trained for combat and the insurgents are disarmed, we will be done in Iraq.

Winning a war requires a mental attitude that doesn't allow for compromise. That's where the politicians continually phuc us up....believing compromise is a good thing.