How Marines kept Fallujah from becoming Dresden; Destroying the city ill-conceived

TriValley Herald ^ | 5.20.04

[ambrose]

Article Last Updated: Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 3:14:49 AM PST

How Marines kept Fallujah from becoming Dresden

Destroying the city ill-conceived; Marines make a pact with

ex-generals instead

By Tony Perry,, Los Angeles Times

Patrick J. McDonnell

and Alissa J. Rubin

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- The insurgents came at the Marines in relentless, almost suicidal waves. By the time the two-hour firefight in the Jolan district of this Sunni Muslim stronghold was over, dozens of anti-American fighters and one Marine were dead.

When the April 26 battle ended, Lt. Gen. James Conway, commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, knew something else: It was, in a microcosm, what house-to-house fighting might look like if the Marines were forced to storm Fallujah and, possibly, level a city of 300,000 people. He didn't like the look of the future battlefield.

Conway had been given authority to cut a deal. He had long spoken about "putting an Iraqi face" on the security forces here. From unexpected quarters, a chance suddenly emerged to accomplish that goal in spectacular -- if far from ideal -- fashion. The April 26 firefight came during an uneasy, and often broken, cease-fire between the insurgents and the Marines who had laid siege to the city earlier that month. At the time, the best hope for a peaceful resolution appeared to be the negotiations involving Sunni clerics, Fallujah civic leaders and sheiks, the Marines and U.S. occupation officials.

[jwalsh07]

Military doctrine does not demand door to door fighting in a city like Fallujah. It isn't necessary to accomplish the mission the CIC has given them.

While I subscribe to the theory that the only good jihadist is a dead jihadist, the vast majority are not jihadists and remembering the mission, you can't save a village by killing it.

[TomasUSMC]

In the end, the Americans left themselves with only bad options," said Michael Clarke, professor of defense studies at King's College, London. "They could either destroy the city, causing heavy loss of life. Or they could walk away. Both are a disaster, but the Americans chose the less disastrous of the two."

---

"They could either destroy the city, causing heavy loss of life- THIS would have been a GOOD option.

A Victory.

An Example - serving as a DETERRENT to future acts against the Coalition. Lets remember that Sadr started his crap AFTER the Americans were burnt and cut up and eaten and hung from a bridge.

THEN we could have gone in and established an Iraqi defense force.

The Marines should have never promoted this Matis guy. He is just looking after getting more stars. He's the one who changed the 1st Marines motto to "First do no harm". What crap!

We would not have had to level the entire city and kill all its inhabitants. Although if ever a city deserved it, Fallujah did. We had most of the enemy cornered in the Jolan neighborhood. Gunships, 155 arty tanks and 2000 lb laze bombs round the clock, would have crushed the enemy in 72 hours in that neighborhood- and our snipers where having a field day.

Instead Urbanturban legends will make Falujans sound bigger than David and Goliath.

Condi Rice, at the 911 hearing, had it backwards when she says we didn't avenge the Cole because we though it might EMBOLDEN the enemy and because we didn't have the right target or the right forces or this or that blah blah.

Failure to respond to attacks is what emboldens the enemy.

.

[TomasUSMC]

Aint no Americans driving downtown in Fallujah unless they are accompanied by tanks helicopters and lots of Marines.

[TomasUSMC]

combined forces put about 70 percent of the insurgents to death from above.

---

So whats the problem, if there just 30 percent left, get them too, quit when you get to 98 percent. It would have taken just a few days for that last 28 percent.

Instead we gave victory to the losing 30 percent.

[ambrose]

The Abu Gharib rotten apples notwithstanding, we have a wonderful military that we can be quite proud of.

And I'm not changing my mind, no matter how often Kerry refers to them as war criminals.

[AlbionGirl]

As long as it was the commanders on the ground making this move (and not the State Dept.), I'm for it.

I don't know much about the State Dept, really, I do know that they have a bad rap, but w/Powell running things I can't imagine him taking Command away from those closest to its favorable execution.

Too many keyboard warriors on this site that want to nuke everything.

You are right about that, and boy do they scare the bejeepers out of me, because I get the distinct impression that they'd be all too willing and all too pleased to mete out the same fate to any American that disagrees w/them.

[Hop A Long Cassidy]

>>>"They will play for the insurgents if that is their only choice, but they will play for our military if they are given a chance. "

Great observations in your post and great analogy to Germany.

I was against this, but it may actually work out. We still don't have Sadr, many powerful weapons, many of his followers, or many of the foreign fighters. But things have certainly calmed down in the city. You may be right.

Hoppy

[AlbionGirl]

You're right. One thing civlians forget which the Soldier probably never forgets, is that many battles may not be able to be lost militarily, but they can't be won that way either.

The older I get the more I marvel at and admire in the extreme, a good Soldier's mind, heart and soul. It is something so far from my natural state of existence that I find it almost illusory.

Reading the rise and fall of the Roman Empire right now, Book 1, I think I'm in love w/Trajan. Here's a question for you though, who was Gibbons writing for, a Cambridge graduate? Goodness, gracious can that man layer thought after thought after thought in one sentence. I really have to study this book, reading it is not an option if I want to retain anything.

[Rokke]

This may interest you.

[LS]

I'm only going to tell you what I hear from my Lt. Col. MARINE cousin, whose son is in Iraq: the Marines learned from the model of the Russians in Grozny how NOT to defeat the enemy in an entrenched place like this. Utterly destroying the city would have created an entire city's worth of "martyrs," and the Marines had no intention of doing that.

What the article does not say is that the Marines did surround the area with the "bad guys" in it---we're only talking about 1/4 of the city---and engaged them repeatedly in skirmishes (just like Karbala and Najaf) that killed dozens, if not hundreds of them.

Bottom line, the Iraqi "insurgents" get to CLAIM whatever they want, but they know the reality that their "victory" was totally at the sufferance of the U.S. and that, as the one guy said, most of them wanted to live.

Just tonight, on Fox, there is an ex-general saying that we did not appreciate the depth of tribalism in Iraq, and that this seemed like a pretty good solution. He is by not means a weak-kneed lib: on the contrary, (sorry, I forgot his name) he thought this probably was the best we could hope for. "Will many of these rebels come back out and fight?" Brit Hume asked. "It's not clear they will," he said. Many were locals who just didn't want Americans there, but weren't opposed to a new Iraqi authority.

I find it interesting that the Marines, who everyone wanted to "go in" and "clean up," were the ones SUGGESTING these approaches and HAD TO GET PERMISSION FROM WASHINGTON to talk to these people. It's exactly the opposite of what the armchair generals here were saying---that Bush and Washington were pressuring them to negotiate.

[LS]

Exactly right. Moreover, the Marines know a thing or two about house-to-house fighting, and they don't like it at all. Oh, they can do it, but they have studied extensively the Russian experience in Grozny as to how NOT to defeat an "urban" enemy.

[LS]

As a Marine, you should know that the Marines officers learned in their officer training simulations that leveling cities, especially with large numbers of non-combatants, was a dead LOSER, and ultimately results in more dead Marines. Further, he noted that the officers studied the failed Russian heavy-handed approach at Grozny and learned how NOT to conduct urban warfare.

[LS]

Interestingly, this "Iraqi-ization" has already occurred pretty much with 100% success in Kurdistan. So it works. Will it work in the Sunni/Shiite sections? We'll see.

But everyone is missing part of the point: we have SLAUGHTERED these fighters in Karbala and Najaf, and word gets out! It forced the Karbala "militia" to basically give up and agree to our terms. Al-Sadr is being told by all his fellow Najaf-ians to get the hell out. This has an effect in Fallujah, believe me.

[LS]

"This area is so unstable even Saddam Hussein wouldn't enter."

He would if he was with Janet Jackson :)

[txrangerette]

Some folks SWORE that Bush gave
the order to back off. They will
never admit anything different,
& they seem ok with a Pres. named
Kerry or Hillary. My vibes from
Myers, Rummy & Bush were just the
opposite; they seemed influenced
by their field commanders.

I believe THAT part of the story.

[LS]

Exactly the opposite has happened. At Karbala and Najaf, restraint in attacking "the city" combined with surgical slaughter of the bad guys has utterly decimated the enemy fighters.

I'm all for destroying a city if that's absolutely necessary, remembering that every one of those . . . what? 200,000 people has relatives who probably were not anti-American and almost CERTAINLY were not violent until you kill their relatives. Now you've just added 200,000 more "insurgents" to the ranks, rather than thinning them by 2-3,000. I think this way is better, and I trust the officers.

[LS]

Sorry, bad logic again. As you know, getting the last 5% of anything increases the costs exponentially far beyond all value.

We NEVER killed all the Japanese on the islands we cut off. We just left them there to starve or give up. None were ever a problem.

But worse, according to your logic, you would ADD another 200,000 jihadists to the equation by killing people who really had no issue in the conflict. Not good strategy.

[gitmo]

Many questions remain in a place where the United States has helped organize, fund and arm a military force of unknown capability or intention -- and unabashedly hostile to the occupiers. Some worry it may be free zone for bomb-makers, saboteurs, assassins and other violent types whose desire to drive the United States out of Iraq remains undiminished.

The intentions of Latif are hard to discern. He is slick, winks at journalists, says one thing to Westerners, another thing to Iraqis.

"He's an intelligence guy," said Col. John Toolan, commander of the 1st Marine Regiment. "You never get a straight answer from those guys."

This may give our infiltrators time to get into the city.

[rbmillerjr]

"What have we seen out of Fallujah since this conflict?"

Zero insurgents turned over.

Zero terrorists turned over for the 4 contractors' murder and mutilation.

If peace at all costs is a victor then we have lowered the bar.

[TomasUSMC]

As you know, getting the last 5% of anything increases the costs exponentially far beyond all value.

---

Crazy Horse apparently didn't hear about that.

On the other hand, Davy and the boys at the Alamo wish the Mexicans had.

One of course, has too understand the value of Victory. Or just the value of doing a job well. This means finishing it. Well at least it used to. Nowadays, with the GOP, I guess we kinda just outsource it.

You see when you annihilate the enemy, he nor others EMBOLDENED by him, come back to bite you.

Victory does not create followers of the losing side. Defeat, does. We have created many more followers of Islamic Terrorist - by retreating from victory and into defeat in Fallujah.