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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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June 23rd,
2009 - Spate of Attacks Tests Iraqi City and U.S. Pullout |
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Spate of
Attacks Tests Iraqi City and U.S. Pullout By Rod Nordland New York Times June 23, 2009 Falluja, Iraq - Falluja was
supposed to be a success story, not a cautionary tale. After all, by last year the
city, a former insurgent stronghold, was considered one of the safest places
in the country. Local Sunni sheiks had driven out the insurgent group Al
Qaeda in Mesopotamia and held successful elections, and American engineers were
hard at work on a showcase reconstruction project: a $100 million wastewater
treatment plant meant to be a model for civilian advances in Iraq. Then a series of troubling
attacks began cropping up this year. One in particular, at the end of May,
seemed to drive home the possibility that things were changing for the worse.
On a heavily patrolled military road between a Marine camp and the wastewater
plant, a huge buried bomb tore through an armored American convoy, killing
three prominent reconstruction officials and striking at hopes that the way
was completely clear for peacetime projects. With the June 30 withdrawal
deadline for American combat troops from Iraqi cities and towns drawing near,
that attack and others like it are particularly ominous for officials who see
Falluja as a test case for the rest of the country. Security here is becoming
a solely Iraqi operation, and while the United States military says the
number of attacks remains encouragingly low, there are signs that Falluja
could again plunge into violence. Falluja has enormous
symbolic significance both to insurgents and to Americans. It was the site of
the war’s only real set-piece battles, in 2004, and probably the fiercest
urban warfare involving American troops since the 1968 battle of Hue, in
Vietnam. By last summer, the local
Provincial Reconstruction Team from the American Embassy was dining alfresco
at sheiks’ houses on the banks of the Euphrates. Now, the Americans avoid
Falluja’s main street because “it’s been a little problematic recently with
some RPG and small-arms attacks,” said the team’s leader, Phil French,
referring to rocket-propelled grenades. The Marines have been
steadily drawing down this year in Anbar Province, which includes Falluja,
and they will be gone from the Falluja area by next month. They have only a
remnant of their forces in Camp Baharia, just outside the city, and they no
longer run combat patrols through the area. “In 2008 it was almost
completely stabilized,” said Brig. Gen. Sadoun Taleb, a member of the
anti-insurgent Awakening militia who is now in the police in the village of
Shihabi, a former trouble spot outside Falluja. “In eight months, not one
thing happened. Now these last seven months, it’s getting worse and worse.” American commanders in the
region dispute that perception. “The facts and statistics prove it’s a much
safer city than it was a year ago,” said Col. Matthew Lopez, commander of the
Marines in eastern Anbar Province. Instances of violence have declined 20
percent in the past six months in eastern Anbar, he said. The new attacks are aimed at
the Iraqi Security Forces, not the Marines, he said. “The leadership of the
I.S.F., and especially the Iraqi police, are much more sensitive to attacks
on them,” Colonel Lopez said. He added: “Things get a lot more attention when
they’re rare.” Still, the attacks have been
chilling - especially the killing of the three Americans, whose 11-vehicle
convoy of armored sport utility vehicles was headed into Camp Baharia when
the bomb destroyed one of them. About a week later, on June
3, the Falluja reconstruction team went to a meeting with local officials in
nearby Karma. A sniper shot one of the Marine escorts, wounding him, but not
fatally. On Saturday, a bomb hidden
in a parked car near Karma blew up and killed three members of a passing
Iraqi police patrol. Maj. Gen. Tariq al-Youssef,
the Anbar Province police commander, arranged a street-level tour of Karma
for a reporter with The New York Times last week. But the walk was cut short
after just three blocks, and took place only after the general ordered dozens
of Provincial Security Force troops to clear the streets and rooftops first. During the tour, an old
woman in a large, shapeless gown approached the general suddenly, and he
started. “I thought she was a suicide bomber at first,” he recalled later,
laughing. The woman wanted only to shower the troops with fistfuls of wrapped
candy, an Iraqi custom. Much of the new violence is
attributed not to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown group that American
intelligence says is led by foreigners, but to more local insurgent groups,
including the Mujahedeen Army, which claimed responsibility for killing the
three American reconstruction officials, and the Islamic Army of Iraq. Both
groups claim to be part of the “patriotic resistance,” made up of Iraqis
only. On June 15, Iraqi police
units in Falluja began an anti-insurgent operation without any support from
the Marines; their own Marine advisers were unaware of it. With a list of 13
terrorism suspects to round up, they raided houses in the Jolan district,
where the insurgency was once strongest. They found two of them in the first
few hours of what they said would be a 10-day operation. They also carried
out random house searches in Jolan. “The Americans used to raid
us and break down the doors; people were scared of them,” said one resident,
Hajji Ali, as the police searched his house. “These guys are my brothers.” The Islamic Army began distributing
fliers a month ago throughout the Falluja area, vowing to attack only
“occupiers,” but not Iraqi civilians or officials, according to Col. Daoud
Suleiman Hamad, deputy chief of the police force in Falluja. “They claim if
the Americans leave, they won’t target anyone,” he said, “We’ve been through
that before; Al Qaeda said that, too.” Iraqi police officials
attribute the situation not to a lack of Marines, but to the Americans’
accelerated release of detainees from the Bucca prison camp, soon to be
handed to the Iraqis. Brig. Gen. David E.
Quantock, commander of the United States Army’s Task Force 134, which runs
detention facilities in Iraq, said the releases had not caused an increase in
violence. “It’s perception, because all of our analysis showed it had nothing
to do with any of them,” he said. Mr. French, the
reconstruction team leader, said, “Everyone’s feeling squirrelly now because
we’re in a transition phase, where the perception was that the release of the
Bucca detainees and the withdrawal of the Marines would make things worse.” “My inclination is to say,
yes, the security is worse,” he said. “Are there really any more incidents? I
don’t think so.” His team has not reduced its activities in the Falluja area,
he said, but “we keep a low profile.” Campbell Robertson
contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York
Times from Falluja. External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/middleeast/24falluja.html |