Excellent summary of the situation in Fallujah.

Orizio

Some excellent reporting from Alternet... :cool:

With a few notable exceptions the media has accepted the recent virtual news blackout in Falluja. The ongoing fighting in the city, especially in "cleared" neighborhoods, is proving an embarrassment and so, while military spokesmen continue to announce American casualties, they now come not from the city itself but, far more vaguely, from "al Anbar province" of which the city is a part. Fifty American soldiers died in the taking of the city; 20 more died in the following weeks – before the reports stopped. Iraqi civilian casualties remain unknown and accounts of what's happened in the city, except from the point of view of embedded reporters (and so of American troops) remain scarce indeed. With only a few exceptions (notably Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post), American reporters have neglected to cull news from refugee camps or Baghdad hospitals, where survivors of the siege are now congregating.

Intrepid independent and foreign reporters are doing a better job (most notably Dahr Jamail, whose dispatches are indispensable), but even they have been handicapped by lack of access to the city itself. At least Jamail did the next best thing, interviewing a Red Crescent worker who was among the handful of NGO personnel allowed briefly into the wreckage that was Fallujah.

These dystopian plans are a direct consequence of the fact that the conquest of Fallujah, despite the destruction of the city, visibly did not accomplish its primary goal: "[To] wipe out militants and insurgents and break the back of guerrillas in Fallujah." Even taking American kill figures at face value, the battle for the city was hardly a full-scale success. Before the assault on the city began, American intelligence estimated that there were 5,000 insurgents inside. General Sattler himself conceded that the final official count was 1,200 fighters killed and no more than 2,000 suspected guerrillas captured. (This assumes, of course, that it was possible in the heat of the battle and its grim aftermath to tell whether any dead man of fighting age was an "insurgent," a "suspected insurgent," or just a dead civilian.) At least a couple of thousand resistance fighters previously residing in Falluja are, then, still "at large" – not counting the undoubtedly sizeable number of displaced residents now angry enough to take up arms. As a consequence, were the U.S. to allow the outraged residents of Fallujah to return unmolested, they would simply face a new struggle in the ruins of the city (as, in fact, continues to be the case anyway). This would leave the extensive devastation of whole neighborhoods as the sole legacy of the invasion.

American desperation is expressed in a willingness to treat all Fallujans as part of the insurgency – the inevitable fate of an occupying army that tries to "root out" a popular resistance. As General Sattler explains, speaking of the plan for the "repopulation" of the city, "Once we've cleared each and every house in a sector, then the Iraqi government will make the notification of residents of that particular sector that they are encouraged to return." In other words, each section of the city must be entirely emptied of life, so that the military can be sure not even one suspect insurgent has infiltrated the new order. (As is evident, this is but another American occupation fantasy, since the insurgents still hiding in the city have evidently proven all too adept at "repopulating" emptied neighborhoods themselves.)

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20779/

Hobbes

Read the charter concerning articles.

AmenToThat

The Fallujah assualt has been a disaster.
Apart from the fact that it was a pr disaster (the marine executing the freedom fighter) in a mosque, and the pictures beamed around the world of heavy handed american tactics the actual assault hasnt acheived its aims.
The is still fighting on a daily basis within the city limits even though the Americans claimed that battle was over after eight days.

The residents are still camped out in makeshift refugee centres all over the place which asks the question how the hell are these people going to vote as one of the states aims of the campaign was to "liberate" the people of Fallujah so they could take part in the election process.
Of more immediate concern to many of them is what they will find when eventually they do get to go back in.

Plus it only succeded in spreading the insurgency as was proved yet again today with the deaths of over 20 invaders in Mosul.

gandalf

Orizio post your own opinions on this please. A comment like "this is an excellent article" is not enough. If I do not see you comments/opinions on this I will close this thread in 24 hours.

Please read the charter before posting again.

sovtek

AmenToThat wrote:

The is still fighting on a daily basis within the city limits even though the Americans claimed that battle was over after eight days.

...and in Mosul...and Baghdad...and and and .....

Orizio

AmenToThat wrote:

The Fallujah assualt has been a disaster.
Apart from the fact that it was a pr disaster (the marine executing the freedom fighter) in a mosque, and the pictures beamed around the world of heavy handed american tactics the actual assault hasnt acheived its aims.
The is still fighting on a daily basis within the city limits even though the Americans claimed that battle was over after eight days.

The residents are still camped out in makeshift refugee centres all over the place which asks the question how the hell are these people going to vote as one of the states aims of the campaign was to "liberate" the people of Fallujah so they could take part in the election process.
Of more immediate concern to many of them is what they will find when eventually they do get to go back in.

Plus it only succeded in spreading the insurgency as was proved yet again today with the deaths of over 20 invaders in Mosul.

Not necessarily a disater.The greatest army in the world doesn't do 'disaters'.Look at the facts:more than half of the insurgency in Falluja(the most rebellius city in Iraq)is now out of action.Thats a success,even if the US armies style of continous bombing against a guerrila army is frankly cowardly.As well as that attacks on US forces have been down 60% since Fallujah so militarily hte attack has been a sucess.

In the 'Hearts and Minds' fight though it was a unmitagated disaster.For the Iraqi people to see one of there cities crushed can only have angered people.If a foreign army bombed Cork city then i would be distraught to the point of open armed insurgency.For the Muslim world to see there mosques and buildings effortlessly flattened can only hurt there pride,which should cause serious repurcussions to the US's popularity in the ME.

Sand

For the Muslim world to see there mosques and buildings effortlessly flattened can only hurt there pride,which should cause serious repurcussions to the US's popularity in the ME.

Well it wasnt like the US was especially loved prior to Fallujah anyway so no real loss there anyway. I think its fair to say that the war for hearts and minds is lost - its very difficult to undo the damage that a bunch of inbred hicks wrought in Abu Gharib, let alone the lack of Mr Rumsfelds head rolling back in Washington.

So theres no point planning operations with an eye to the popularity contest thats effectively lost anyway. Lets not forget that Fallujah was targeted for invasion earlier. Negotiations were begun with the insurgents, a compromise reached, a deal to prevent a battle and to avoid the bad pr from it was made. A Iraqi force was equipped to patrol Fallujah instead of Coalition troops.

The Iraqi force went over to the insurgents with their shiny new American gear, the insurgents continued using Fallujah as a base to launch attacks across Iraq and the coalition didnt reap any benefits in the PR stakes. One way or the other the invasion of Fallujah was both necessary and inevitable, regardless of how popular or unpopular it was.