Losing the battle for Fallujah -Jan 6, 2005

by Cliff Kindy

On November 4, 2004 the U.S. military bombed Fallujah as a prelude to an assault on the city of 300,000. Over the next four days, U.S. forces attacked and took over an emergency clinic and the main hospital. The major ground invasion started December 8.

More than seven weeks have passed since the first bombing runs, meant to rub out Fallujah's estimated 3000 insurgents in preparation for elections on January 31, 2005, started. U.S. troops outnumbered the insurgents threefold and had support from Iraqi forces. Yet despite superior American firepower, the battle for Fallujah continues.

On December 24, CPT visited refugees from Fallujah living in a camp south of the city. One young man had tried to return home four days earlier. At the outskirts of Fallujah, he saw U.S. artillery firing into the city center and told skeptical CPTers that the resistance forces still held the city.

The following day, however, CPT read a security update that quoted an Iraq National Guard officer stating: "We made a big mistake when we told the [refugee] families that they could return to Fallujah... I think now that the battle has begun all over again in Fallujah, or that history has taken us back to the first day of the battle..."

Red Crescent (RC) staff told CPT that water and electricity are still not hooked up across the city. The RC also indicated that two weeks after U.S. forces had entered the city, they told the RC to close its offices "because it was too dangerous." They have not been operating in Fallujah since December 5 but still provide relief convoys to four cities that house more than 17,000 refugee families from Fallujah.

In addition, an Iraqi journalist friend of CPT has visited several groups of refugees from Fallujah now living in Baghdad who also believe Fallujah is still not inhabitable. He reported that families from one section of Fallujah were allowed to return. U.S. officials offered them trailers if their homes were destroyed but forced them to submit to an iris scan and fingerprints. Their information would be put on identity cards that would limit their freedom of movement within Fallujah. According to RC spokespersons, most of the 1400 returnees left again because their homes had been destroyed.

A foreign journalist told CPT that 175 Fallujah families were living in tents at Baghdad University. On the day of the press conference announcing their return home, these families held a demonstration. They demanded an apology from the U.S., billion in compensation Fallujah's residents, and assurances that the people--as opposed to foreign contractors-- would be allowed to rebuild their own city.

Both the U.S. and U.N predict a nearly total Sunni boycott of the coming elections in large part because of the Fallujah attacks. Lack of Sunni participation will jeopardize the validity of the election and calls into question the wisdom trying to subdue Fallujah using violence.

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative of the historic peace churches (Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and Quakers) with support and membership from a range of Catholic and Protestant denominations. Supporting violence-reduction efforts around the world is its mandate.

Article reproduced with the kind permission of Christian Peacemaker Teams