By Eric Schmitt
The New York Times, 28 April 2004
WASHINGTON, April 27 — The siege in Falluja is a case study in mistaken assumptions, dashed hopes, rivalry between the Army and the Marine Corps, and a tragedy that became a trigger, Pentagon officials, senior officers and independent military analysts said Tuesday.
The chain of decisions leading to the standoff that has made the city of nearly 300,000 people in the Sunni heartland a symbol of the insurgency also illustrates conflicting military strategies and shifting political aims. The fate of Falluja has become a possible harbinger for all of Iraq.
Some critics say the immediate showdown is a result of the Marines' overreaction to the killing and mutilation of four American private security contractors on March 31. "They've gone to the sledgehammer approach," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Even before the contractors' deaths, however, the marines ran into sporadic but stiff resistance last month as they took over responsibility for the area from departing Army soldiers. Marine commanders defended their response, which was to throw a cordon of troops, tanks and artillery around the city, try to avoid civilian casualties and prepare for an urban battle to root out some 2,000 insurgents.
In recent days, commanders have said they are taking great pains to avoid an all-out attack. "Every attempt will be made to solve the problem peacefully before resorting to a military offensive against terrorists inside the city," Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, the top Marine general in Iraq, said in an e-mail message.
Dealing with Falluja has gone from strictly a military matter for commanders in Iraq to a broader political debate involving President Bush and his top national security aides in Washington, who have voiced concerns that images of fierce fighting in Falluja will stir uprisings throughout Iraq and outrage throughout the Arab world.
Some Marine commanders grumble that the stop-and-start negotiations are giving insurgents more time to restock and refortify their defenses, putting marines' lives at risk and postponing what they say is an inevitable American attack.
The decision to delay any immediate offensive into Falluja is still very tenuous, Pentagon officials said Tuesday. Military commanders are unwilling to accept the status quo, while intelligence suggests that backing off would encourage a new generation of opposition, and postpone big problems until closer to the transfer to Iraqi sovereignty on June 30. There is little sign that resistance is weakening.
If there is any glimmer of hope for a negotiated settlement, American and Iraqi civilian authorities are eager to grasp it. But the idea of sending joint American-Iraqi patrols deep into the city has been put off several times, since American commanders said Tuesday that the Iraqi forces who were being asked to take part were not yet capable of doing so without putting themselves and the marines at risk.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that "if at some point the military decides that the string has run out, then they will tell us that and take appropriate action."
"Now, does that mean that something can't be worked out?" he continued. "No, I wouldn't say that, or else we wouldn't be where we are."
The standoff in Falluja has been building for more than a year. American units have come and gone so often in this hotbed of Sunni resistance that they have had little time to understand their surroundings. Falluja was initially occupied last year by the 82nd Airborne Division, which was soon replaced by the Third Armored Cavalry, which in turn was replaced by a brigade of the Army's Third Infantry Division. Last summer, the Third Infantry handed the town back to the Third Armored Cavalry, which was soon replaced by the 82nd Airborne Division. Last month, the marines replaced the 82nd Airborne.
By December, Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., the division's commander, spoke of being on a "glide path" to victory over the insurgents, at least in Al Anbar Province, in western Iraq. By February, the 82nd Airborne had largely pulled back from patrolling Falluja, putting more responsibility in the hands of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the Iraqi police. But in early April, those Iraqi forces largely folded under fire.
Although reluctant to criticize the Army publicly, the marines replacing the 82nd Airborne said the Army's practice of staying out of town allowed the security situation in Falluja to fester. For weeks, General Conway and other Marine commanders had boasted they would shift tactics to work more closely with local people, to gain their trust, and, in the process, glean intelligence about insurgents' locations. This strategy drew on the Marine Corps' "Small Wars" manual, which derives from their 20th-century interventions in Central America.
Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, the First Marine Division commander, reminded his forces in a message as they arrived last month that he had added the warning, "Do no harm," to the unit's motto of "No better friend, no worse enemy." Before showing their "velvet glove" approach, however, the Marines also wanted insurgents to feel their mailed fist. "We will move precisely against the enemy elements and crush them without harming the innocent," General Mattis said in his message.
Almost immediately after taking over from the Army, marines came under fire. A convoy was ambushed. Patrols pushing into town for the first time in weeks were met with mortar and rocket fire, and had to pull back. Then the four contractors from Blackwater U.S.A. were killed.
"Certainly the reason we went into Falluja included the killing of the four contractors, but Falluja was not a garden paradise before then," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief spokesman for the American military command, said Tuesday. "Falluja has been a problem, a significant problem for the coalition and for Iraqi security forces for many, many months."
In the Pentagon's view, Falluja was boiling. There had been 27 attacks on occupation forces, Iraqi security sites or American administration targets in the three weeks before the Blackwater killings. Because of that, planning was already under way to go in and clean out insurgents in Falluja.
The planning was accelerated after the Blackwater attack because those killings were viewed by the Pentagon and local commanders as premeditated, and the population cheered — indicating the dangerous political effect of allowing a Falluja-based insurgency to remain.
Some Army officers said marines had stirred up a hornet's nest without responding swiftly and forcefully enough. "The threat in the Al Anbar Province was flat out afraid of the 82nd paratroopers," said one Army officer who served near Falluja.
But Maj. Kevin Collins, a Marine operations officer in Falluja, put the Marines' attitude this way, "If you chose to pick a fight, we'll finish it."
Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington for this article, John F. Burns from Baghdad and John Kifner from Falluja.
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Citation: Eric Schmitt. "The Siege of Falluja, a Test in a Tinderbox," The New York Times, 28 April 2004.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/international/middleeast/28SIEG.html?ex=1398484800&en=141b44bf6be91a54&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
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