Losing the battle for Fallujah.
By Cliff Kindy

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

More than seven weeks have passed since the first bombing runs, meant to rub out Fallujah's estimated 3,000 insurgents in preparation for elections on Jan. 30. US troops outnumbered the insurgents threefold and had support from Iraqi forces. Yet despite superior American firepower, the battle for Fallujah continues.

On Dec. 24, Christian Peacemaker Teams (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 US 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 Cross/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 US 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 Dec. 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. US 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 1,400 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 US, $1 billion in compensation to Fallujah's residents, and assurances that the people--as opposed to foreign contractors--would be allowed to rebuild their own city.

Both the US and UN 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 of trying to subdue Fallujah using violence.

--Cliff Kindy is a Church of the Brethren member serving with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). He has spent much of the past two years in Iraq with the CPT team based there. CPT is an initiative of the historic peace churches--Church of the Brethren, Mennonites, and Quakers--with support and membership from a range of Catholic and Protestant denominations. Supporting violence-reduction efforts around the world is its mandate. For more information contact CPT at 773-277-0253, e-mail peacemakers@cpt.org, or see www.cpt.org.

Source: 01/07/2005 Newsline