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March 27th,
2009 - Fallujah is Test Case for Post-US Iraq |
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Fallujah is Test Case for Post-US
Iraq By Hamza Hendawi Associated Press March 27th, 2009 Fallujah, Iraq - The
Americans are gone from Fallujah, but the "King of Kentucky Chicken
Restaurant" is open for business in a bullet-pocked building. The city that suffered some
of the bloodiest episodes of the Iraq war is back under Iraqi control and
bursting with entrepreneurial energy, from music stores and restaurants to
workmen digging trenches for a long-delayed U.S.-funded sewage network. But much war damage remains
untended, unemployment runs high, farming has fallen into neglect and there are
constant fears that the insurgents who waged war are waiting for the right
moment to rekindle the conflict. This city of 400,000 was the
heartbeat of the uprising that followed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq -
notorious for bombings, the killing of 17 people when U.S. paratroopers fired
on protesters, and the ambush in which the burned bodies of four Blackwater security
company men were hung on a bridge. In November 2004, with
Fallujah in insurgent hands, the U.S. military launched an operation to
recapture the city. After 45 days that saw some of the heaviest urban combat
for Americans since the Vietnam War, the U.S. announced it had crushed the
last pocket of resistance in Fallujah. Of at least 225 Americans
who have died in action in Fallujah since the invasion, 78 were killed in the
final operation, according to Pentagon figures. Insurgent losses were estimated
at about 1,350. U.S. forces continued to
control the city tightly until last month, when they quit the last of their
posts inside Fallujah. Now the city 30 miles west of Baghdad is a testing
ground for the Iraqis' ability to keep the peace unaided. Security is uppermost in
people's minds here, their worries heightened by two suicide bombings in the
Fallujah area this month that targeted Sunni clan leaders who fought against
the insurgents. One of the bombers was thought to have recently been freed from
Camp Bucca, the U.S. detention center in southern Iraq. Thousands of detainees have
been freed from U.S. custody in recent months to comply with a U.S.-Iraqi
security pact that took effect on Jan. 1, and there are fears some of them
will try to join up with al-Qaida sleeper cells. "Bucca has reinforced
their extremist ideology since the most radical detainees are kept together
away from the rest," said Mushtaq al-Eifan, a prominent clan member who
fought al-Qaida. However, Fallujah is
relatively calm, though its notoriety appears to endure. Mayor Sheik Hameed Hashem
says he is struggling to staff to capacity a $46 million, 200-bed hospital
just built with government funds because of misconceptions about security in
Fallujah. He is promising housing and police protection for out-of-town
doctors who agree to work at the hospital. Meanwhile, as Fallujah
recovers some of its traditional vigor as a transport and trade hub, it is
feeling pressures of a different sort - falling oil prices. Hashem says his 2009 budget
has been slashed by two-thirds to around 50 billion Iraqi dinars (about $43
million) because of the slump in oil earnings that underpin government
revenue. With unemployment at about
30 percent, he said he needs money for industrial and farming projects to
create jobs. Also, he said he needs to build a power station as the
government provides only 25 percent of Fallujah's electricity needs and the
rest comes from private generators. Still, in ways both big and
small, the city is struggling back to normalcy. Along with the $100 million
sewage network, construction of a stretch of elevated highway appears to be
moving ahead. Music shops, torched or forcibly shuttered as un-Islamic during
the seven months of 2004 that al-Qaida and its allies controlled the city,
are open again. Hashem said the U.S. paid
$150 million compensation for 35,000 - 40,000 homes damaged or destroyed in
fighting and that they have been repaired. Ismail Haqi's
"Kentucky" restaurant, its name posted in Arabic with two large
images of Colonel Sanders, opened two months ago on a main street of Fallujah
and offers a meal of chicken, fries and soda for the equivalent of about
$4.50. The restaurant is inspired by - but not connected to - the
American-based KFC. "I decided to bring to
Fallujah a global name," said Haqi, 19. "Some people come up to me
and say 'this is an American company and we suffered so much in Fallujah at
the hands of the Americans.' But I tell them that Kentucky exists across the
world, so why not here?" Some seem unready to put the
fighting behind them. Several mosques still show the damage they suffered in
the fighting, and Fallujans believe they are being deliberately left in
disrepair as protests against what they see as the brutality of the 2004 U.S.
offensive. Col. Mahmoud al-Issawi,
Fallujah's police chief, is more worried about al-Qaida and other militants
using Fallujah as a refuge from U.S. and Iraqi search parties. Al-Issawi, an energetic man
in his mid-40s, said that in the five months since he took the job, his force
has uncovered more than 200 arms caches in the Fallujah area, including
roadside bombs, rockets, firearms and walkie-talkies which can be used as
detonators. Speaking at his heavily
guarded office, he also voiced concern about the prisoner releases. He said
260 detainees from Anbar, Fallujah's province, were about to be freed from
Camp Bucca, the largest U.S. detention center. "I want them released
into our custody and not to politicians in Baghdad. I will arrest those that
I have evidence against and let the rest go free," he said, showing a
list of the 260 men and their photographs. "These people are
filled with hatred and terrorism and they will want to come back and exact
revenge," he said. "They may be tempted now that the Americans are
gone." Copyright © 2009 The
Associated Press. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hs30joz-bGykpn6bNl0o7RpSxVYQD976GVBG0 |