MetalBoy
04-26-2004, 01:42 AM
U.S. Opts To Delay Fallujah Offensive
Marines, Iraqi Forces Planning Joint Patrols
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 26, 2004; Page A01
FALLUJAH, Iraq, April 25 -- U.S. Marines have postponed plans to mount an attack against insurgents holed up here and instead will attempt to regain control of this violence-wracked city without a full-scale offensive, military commanders said Sunday.
Concerned about the repercussions an attack could generate across Iraq and the Arab world, senior U.S. military and civilian officials said they had decided to try to confront a band of hard-core Sunni Muslim insurgents, who have effectively taken over Fallujah, by having Marines conduct patrols in the city alongside Iraqi security forces.
The new strategy, reached in consultation with the White House over the weekend, represents an effort by U.S. officials to avoid a military incursion that could entail urban combat, civilian casualties and a wave of retributive strikes outside Fallujah, further poisoning relations between Iraqis and U.S. occupation forces.
"A military solution is not going to be the solution here unless everything else fails," said Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, which is responsible for securing Fallujah and other areas of western Iraq. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said efforts to deal with the insurgency in Fallujah had shifted to "a political track."
The strategy shift is the latest in a series of U.S. policy reversals designed to placate Iraq's Sunnis, a once-powerful minority whose postwar disenfranchisement has fueled attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces. Last week, the U.S. occupation authority announced it would hire back some senior military officers and teachers who were dismissed by the authority because they had been members of former president Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baath Party.
U.S. military commanders and civilian leaders have also decided to take a similar approach with militiamen loyal to a radical Shiite cleric, Moqtada Sadr. Although U.S. soldiers have mobilized outside the holy city of Najaf, where Sadr and many of his militiamen have congregated, Kimmitt said there were "no timelines" for the soldiers to enter the city.
U.S. officials continue to rely on Iraqi interlocutors to persuade Sadr to demobilize his illegal militia, whose members have repeatedly attacked U.S. forces and foreign troops stationed in central Iraq. "We would like to obtain a final agreement in Najaf," Kimmitt said.
Together, the latest approaches to dealing with Fallujah and Najaf represent a new effort by the U.S. military and civilian leadership in Iraq to avoid the sort of violent confrontations that occurred earlier this month, when Marines fought running battles in Fallujah and Sadr's militiamen skirmished with soldiers in Baghdad and across central Iraq.
"This is the way we want to do it," Mattis said. "We didn't come here to fight."
If Marines patrolling the city are fired upon, Mattis said, they would shoot back and reassess the use of joint patrols or whether more aggressive military action was warranted.
"If we do not gain control of Fallujah using joint patrols, then we've got to look at other options," he said.
Some military officials have privately voiced skepticism about the patrols, saying they expect the insurgents to fire upon the Marines. "We need to engage them on our own terms," one officer said.
Marine commanders in and around Fallujah had expected to receive orders over the weekend to mount a comprehensive attack on insurgents in the city, who Marines believe are a combination of foreign fighters, indigenous Islamic extremists and Hussein loyalists. Marine officers estimate there are several hundred insurgents in Fallujah, which is located on the Euphrates River about 35 miles west of Baghdad.
After a mob killed and mutilated four U.S. security contractors there, Marines encircled the dusty city of 200,000 and engaged in intense firefights with insurgents. After three days, however, U.S. commanders declared a cease-fire in an attempt to negotiate a solution.
Although a group of civic leaders had agreed to a peace deal with U.S. military commanders and civilian officials on April 19, the local leaders have failed to fulfill a key element of the agreement -- getting the insurgents to surrender heavy weapons. On Wednesday, police officers delivered a pickup truck filled with rusty and largely inoperative weapons, not the modern equipment military officers had wanted. The lack of compliance with the arms handover prompted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and senior military officials to suggest that offensive action could resume on short notice.
Rumsfeld and the other military officials questioned whether the local leaders who signed the peace agreement had enough influence over the insurgents to compel them to turn over weapons and cease hostilities. If the leaders could not deliver, the military officials said, the Marines would be left with no option but to resort to force again.
But on Saturday, with Marine commanders preparing their attack plans, top American officials helicoptered into a sprawling base outside Fallujah for last-ditch meetings. Participants included the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and the overall commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid. Iraqi political leaders, who have been negotiating with civic leaders in Fallujah, implored the American officials to give the peace deal more time, according to a U.S. official familiar with the discussions. The Iraqis insisted that many in the city who had fought against the Marines earlier in the month had promised to cease attacks but did not want to give up their weapons, the official said.
In response, Bremer and Abizaid decided to try to implement joint patrols to give the local leaders a final chance to demonstrate whether they could control the city, the official said. "If they can keep the bad guys from shooting, that's great," the official said. "If the bad guys start shooting at the Marines, then we're going to have to go in with more force."
The decision not to attack immediately and to attempt the joint patrols was so sensitive that it was made in consultation with the White House, the official said.
In Washington, a senior Bush administration official said the decision to rely for now on patrols rather than an attack was based partly on the concern of President Bush's aides about the fallout an invasion could trigger in the Arab world.
"It's a situation that calls for precision and some measure of patience -- not unlimited patience, however," said the official, who declined to be identified in order to speak more candidly. "You want to be prepared to take strong action on short notice against those who've been identified, and do what's necessary to subdue them. On the other hand, you don't want to misfire prematurely in such a way that you temporarily make the local situation worse and provide images that incite a broader reaction."
Despite pledges of stability from local leaders, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, the commander of a Marine battalion in Fallujah, said he would not take any chances: The Marine unit conducting the joint patrol, he said, will have air support and "will be prepared for anything they might run into."
The decision to use joint patrols, with heavy U.S. armor escorting uniformed Iraqi police and civil defense officers, also serves to shift the context of any future confrontation away from the notion of collective punishment for the mutilation of the contractors.
"Whether we use military means or whether we use political means, we're committed to achieving the end, which is to get Iraqi control back in the city," Kimmitt said.
Iraqi security forces interviewed in Fallujah on Sunday were apprehensive about the idea of patrolling with the Marines. "I don't feel safe because the Americans are not safe," said police Capt. Jassim Mohammed Abid. "They're going to get shot at. They can't guarantee safety for themselves, so how can they guarantee safety for me?"
Kimmitt referred to the first joint patrol, which is planned for Tuesday, as both a test and a possible watershed. "That will be the first step into returning the city to a sense of stability that eventually will result in our being able to bring a tremendous amount of funds, civil affairs money and expertise into that city," he said.
On the heels of Bremer's meeting on Saturday, the occupation authority formally announced $70 million in funding for civic improvements in Fallujah and nearby Ramadi: $20 million upfront and $50 million soon.
Meanwhile, in southern Iraq, the country's main oil-exporting terminal will remain closed until at least Monday after it was damaged in a seaborne suicide attack on Saturday, Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr Uloum told reporters. The Basra terminal normally funnels nearly a million barrels daily to waiting tankers.
A third American service member, identified as a U.S. Coast Guardsman, died from wounds suffered when a patrol craft challenged the explosives-laden dhow, one of three that exploded at the port in a coordinated attack.
In Baghdad, a U.S. soldier was killed and three were wounded when a roadside bomb detonated Sunday morning. Several civilians, including children, were killed when soldiers came under fire from rooftops on both sides of the road when they returned to collect their wrecked Humvee, the military said.
In other attacks Sunday, eight U.S. soldiers were wounded by assorted mortar fire or roadside bombs in Balad, north of Baghdad. Four Iraqi civilians were killed in the northern city of Mosul after mortar shells landed outside a hotel and a hospital
I don't know if I like this idea of patrolling a combat zone. I wonder if this will just lead to more US casualties by ambushes by the insurgents. And the comment by the Maj. Gen Mattis that they didn't come here to fight? WTF is that about?
Marines, Iraqi Forces Planning Joint Patrols
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 26, 2004; Page A01
FALLUJAH, Iraq, April 25 -- U.S. Marines have postponed plans to mount an attack against insurgents holed up here and instead will attempt to regain control of this violence-wracked city without a full-scale offensive, military commanders said Sunday.
Concerned about the repercussions an attack could generate across Iraq and the Arab world, senior U.S. military and civilian officials said they had decided to try to confront a band of hard-core Sunni Muslim insurgents, who have effectively taken over Fallujah, by having Marines conduct patrols in the city alongside Iraqi security forces.
The new strategy, reached in consultation with the White House over the weekend, represents an effort by U.S. officials to avoid a military incursion that could entail urban combat, civilian casualties and a wave of retributive strikes outside Fallujah, further poisoning relations between Iraqis and U.S. occupation forces.
"A military solution is not going to be the solution here unless everything else fails," said Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, which is responsible for securing Fallujah and other areas of western Iraq. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said efforts to deal with the insurgency in Fallujah had shifted to "a political track."
The strategy shift is the latest in a series of U.S. policy reversals designed to placate Iraq's Sunnis, a once-powerful minority whose postwar disenfranchisement has fueled attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces. Last week, the U.S. occupation authority announced it would hire back some senior military officers and teachers who were dismissed by the authority because they had been members of former president Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baath Party.
U.S. military commanders and civilian leaders have also decided to take a similar approach with militiamen loyal to a radical Shiite cleric, Moqtada Sadr. Although U.S. soldiers have mobilized outside the holy city of Najaf, where Sadr and many of his militiamen have congregated, Kimmitt said there were "no timelines" for the soldiers to enter the city.
U.S. officials continue to rely on Iraqi interlocutors to persuade Sadr to demobilize his illegal militia, whose members have repeatedly attacked U.S. forces and foreign troops stationed in central Iraq. "We would like to obtain a final agreement in Najaf," Kimmitt said.
Together, the latest approaches to dealing with Fallujah and Najaf represent a new effort by the U.S. military and civilian leadership in Iraq to avoid the sort of violent confrontations that occurred earlier this month, when Marines fought running battles in Fallujah and Sadr's militiamen skirmished with soldiers in Baghdad and across central Iraq.
"This is the way we want to do it," Mattis said. "We didn't come here to fight."
If Marines patrolling the city are fired upon, Mattis said, they would shoot back and reassess the use of joint patrols or whether more aggressive military action was warranted.
"If we do not gain control of Fallujah using joint patrols, then we've got to look at other options," he said.
Some military officials have privately voiced skepticism about the patrols, saying they expect the insurgents to fire upon the Marines. "We need to engage them on our own terms," one officer said.
Marine commanders in and around Fallujah had expected to receive orders over the weekend to mount a comprehensive attack on insurgents in the city, who Marines believe are a combination of foreign fighters, indigenous Islamic extremists and Hussein loyalists. Marine officers estimate there are several hundred insurgents in Fallujah, which is located on the Euphrates River about 35 miles west of Baghdad.
After a mob killed and mutilated four U.S. security contractors there, Marines encircled the dusty city of 200,000 and engaged in intense firefights with insurgents. After three days, however, U.S. commanders declared a cease-fire in an attempt to negotiate a solution.
Although a group of civic leaders had agreed to a peace deal with U.S. military commanders and civilian officials on April 19, the local leaders have failed to fulfill a key element of the agreement -- getting the insurgents to surrender heavy weapons. On Wednesday, police officers delivered a pickup truck filled with rusty and largely inoperative weapons, not the modern equipment military officers had wanted. The lack of compliance with the arms handover prompted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and senior military officials to suggest that offensive action could resume on short notice.
Rumsfeld and the other military officials questioned whether the local leaders who signed the peace agreement had enough influence over the insurgents to compel them to turn over weapons and cease hostilities. If the leaders could not deliver, the military officials said, the Marines would be left with no option but to resort to force again.
But on Saturday, with Marine commanders preparing their attack plans, top American officials helicoptered into a sprawling base outside Fallujah for last-ditch meetings. Participants included the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and the overall commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid. Iraqi political leaders, who have been negotiating with civic leaders in Fallujah, implored the American officials to give the peace deal more time, according to a U.S. official familiar with the discussions. The Iraqis insisted that many in the city who had fought against the Marines earlier in the month had promised to cease attacks but did not want to give up their weapons, the official said.
In response, Bremer and Abizaid decided to try to implement joint patrols to give the local leaders a final chance to demonstrate whether they could control the city, the official said. "If they can keep the bad guys from shooting, that's great," the official said. "If the bad guys start shooting at the Marines, then we're going to have to go in with more force."
The decision not to attack immediately and to attempt the joint patrols was so sensitive that it was made in consultation with the White House, the official said.
In Washington, a senior Bush administration official said the decision to rely for now on patrols rather than an attack was based partly on the concern of President Bush's aides about the fallout an invasion could trigger in the Arab world.
"It's a situation that calls for precision and some measure of patience -- not unlimited patience, however," said the official, who declined to be identified in order to speak more candidly. "You want to be prepared to take strong action on short notice against those who've been identified, and do what's necessary to subdue them. On the other hand, you don't want to misfire prematurely in such a way that you temporarily make the local situation worse and provide images that incite a broader reaction."
Despite pledges of stability from local leaders, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, the commander of a Marine battalion in Fallujah, said he would not take any chances: The Marine unit conducting the joint patrol, he said, will have air support and "will be prepared for anything they might run into."
The decision to use joint patrols, with heavy U.S. armor escorting uniformed Iraqi police and civil defense officers, also serves to shift the context of any future confrontation away from the notion of collective punishment for the mutilation of the contractors.
"Whether we use military means or whether we use political means, we're committed to achieving the end, which is to get Iraqi control back in the city," Kimmitt said.
Iraqi security forces interviewed in Fallujah on Sunday were apprehensive about the idea of patrolling with the Marines. "I don't feel safe because the Americans are not safe," said police Capt. Jassim Mohammed Abid. "They're going to get shot at. They can't guarantee safety for themselves, so how can they guarantee safety for me?"
Kimmitt referred to the first joint patrol, which is planned for Tuesday, as both a test and a possible watershed. "That will be the first step into returning the city to a sense of stability that eventually will result in our being able to bring a tremendous amount of funds, civil affairs money and expertise into that city," he said.
On the heels of Bremer's meeting on Saturday, the occupation authority formally announced $70 million in funding for civic improvements in Fallujah and nearby Ramadi: $20 million upfront and $50 million soon.
Meanwhile, in southern Iraq, the country's main oil-exporting terminal will remain closed until at least Monday after it was damaged in a seaborne suicide attack on Saturday, Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr Uloum told reporters. The Basra terminal normally funnels nearly a million barrels daily to waiting tankers.
A third American service member, identified as a U.S. Coast Guardsman, died from wounds suffered when a patrol craft challenged the explosives-laden dhow, one of three that exploded at the port in a coordinated attack.
In Baghdad, a U.S. soldier was killed and three were wounded when a roadside bomb detonated Sunday morning. Several civilians, including children, were killed when soldiers came under fire from rooftops on both sides of the road when they returned to collect their wrecked Humvee, the military said.
In other attacks Sunday, eight U.S. soldiers were wounded by assorted mortar fire or roadside bombs in Balad, north of Baghdad. Four Iraqi civilians were killed in the northern city of Mosul after mortar shells landed outside a hotel and a hospital
I don't know if I like this idea of patrolling a combat zone. I wonder if this will just lead to more US casualties by ambushes by the insurgents. And the comment by the Maj. Gen Mattis that they didn't come here to fight? WTF is that about?