Marines Prepare for Fallujah Pull Back (Fox Reports NO PEACE DEAL in Fallujah)

AP ^ | Thu, Apr 29, 2004 | Jayson Keyser

[Eurotwit]

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Marines in Fallujah began packing up gear and loading heavy trucks Thursday, saying they had been ordered to leave the southern industrial zone that they have held for weeks and pull away from the city.

It was not immediately known if the move represented a withdrawal of Marines from their siege of the city or if other Marine forces were being rotated in to replace the withdrawing 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

Some of the Marines said they had orders to move to the nearby village of Garma.

U.S. forces delayed potentially dangerous joint Iraqi-American patrols in Fallujah after three days of fighting and pressure increased on the United States to prevent an escalation of violence in the besieged city.

Easing the prospect of an assault on Fallujah, a tentative agreement has been reached under which the United States would end its siege of Fallujah and withdraw Marines from around the city over several days, Los Angeles Times reporter Tony Perry told CNN on Thursday.

Perry, who is embedded the U.S. 1st Marine Division, told CNN four former Iraqi generals under Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had come forward and said that Iraq (news - web sites)'s army would be responsible for operations and security in the city. They were working out details of the deal in meetings with U.S. Marines on Thursday.

In violence throughout Iraq, a U.S. soldier was killed in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad, and a foreign civilian was shot to death in an attack on his car in the southern city of Basra. Three members of an Iraqi family were killed when a rocket hit a residential building in the northern city of Beiji.

U.S. troops at the main checkpoint in and out of Fallujah opened fire on a car, killing several Iraqis but there were differing accounts of the circumstances of the attacks.

Marine Capt. James Edge said a car screeched into the razorwire near the main Marine checkpoint into Fallujah and gunmen inside opened fire with assault rifles on the Americans. U.S. troops returned fire with a Humvee-mounted heavy machine gun, killing at least three men in the car, Edge said. A fourth person was wounded but it was not clear if he was in the car or a bystander, Edge said.

An AP reporter, however, saw U.S. soldiers opened fire on a pickup truck at the checkpoint, killing a seven-member family that was trying to flee the city. It was not clear if the accounts referred to separate incidents.

In the south, a U.S. base in the Shiite holy city of Najaf came under mortar fire Thursday in an attack that caused no casualties but showed increasing boldness from Shiite militiamen in the city. Militiamen also attacked a U.S. convoy passing through part of the city overnight, prompting an exchange that killed an Iraqi woman and wounded six people, hospital officials said.

The Fallujah violence, aired live on television screens with images of explosions and burning buildings, increased pressure on the United States to prevent a revival of the heavy bloodshed in Fallujah during the first two weeks of April.

"Violent military action by an occupying power against inhabitants of an occupied country will only make matters worse," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) warned. "It's definitely time, time now for those who prefer restraint and dialogue to make their voices heard."

Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council also called on the United States to stop attacks in Fallujah and said if the United States refused, his Iraqi Islamic Party would consider withdrawing from the council.

"We call on the American troops that are bombing Fallujah to stop immediately and withdraw outside of the city," Abdul-Hamid told al-Jazeera television. "Otherwise, we'll be forced ... to consider the subject of withdrawal."

On Wednesday, U.S. warplanes dropped 500-pound, laser-guided bombs on guerrilla targets as battles broke out in several parts of the city, including areas that had been relatively quiet.

One resident, Hassan al-Maadhidi, returned to Fallujah after fleeing earlier fighting and was distraught Thursday when he saw the destruction from fighting over the past three days.

"I returned yesterday to see houses destroyed, streets empty and shops bombarded," al-Maadhidi said, adding that he may flee the city again.

Witnesses reported at least 25 destroyed buildings. At least 10 people were injured in the fighting, hospital officials said Thursday. There were no reports of guerrilla casualties although insurgents often do not evacuate their casualties to hospitals, fearing that they could be arrested. Hospital officials said ambulances could not reach the areas where many of the battles took place.

In Baghdad, U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the U.S. strikes were limited and aimed at gunmen who were attacking Americans.

"Even though it may not look like it, there is still a determined aspiration on the part of the coalition to maintain a cease-fire and solve the situation in Fallujah by peaceful means," he said.

The U.S. military announced that joint U.S.-Iraqi patrols into Fallujah would be delayed by a day, to Friday. The patrols were part of an effort to reduce tensions and stop Marine assault of the city.

Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said that when the patrols begin "we expect hostile fire. There is a cadre of bad guys that are still in Fallujah and anytime people go into Fallujah they get fired at."

In a report explaining the city's fierce resistance to the U.S. occupation, Middle East expert Anthony Cordesman said Fallujah had seen a rise in Islamic extremism even before the war.

Fallujah was a key bastion of support for Saddam Hussein's rule and the loss of vast subsidies it enjoyed under Saddam turned it into a hotbed of resistance, said Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"Such areas had never had any clear economic reason for their privileges and promised to be the permanent losers" in a change in regime, it said.

The death in the roadside bombing Thursday raised to 117 the number of U.S. servicemembers killed in April, the bloodiest month for U.S. forces in Iraq. At least 725 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. Up to 1,200 Iraqis also have been killed this month.

A volley of seven mortar rounds Thursday hit in and around the U.S. base in the holy city of Najaf, where anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is based. The attack caused no damage or casualties, but it showed increasing boldness by militiamen. Attackers regularly mortar the camp — held by the Spanish until U.S. troops moved in this week — at night, but rarely during the day.

[Destro]

Sadly, the Iraqi army has shown no desire to fight when faced with the enemy - sometimes our Iraqi army is the enemy.

[veryconernedamerican]

we are attacking on a daily bases, either from the air or ground, if we sent in a massive response these guys would just go underground, so what good is that. looks like we ware picking off terrorists as soon as they set up positions, beyond killing everyone in the city what are the other choices. problem is we don't know who to kill until they take up arms. there is nothing better we can do than kill them in place with them not having a chance to fight back. nothing will demoralize opposition more than to die with no enemy in sight. we did this in afghanistan with devastating affects.

[af_vet_1981]

we are attacking on a daily bases, either from the air or ground, if we sent in a massive response these guys would just go underground, so what good is that. looks like we ware picking off terrorists as soon as they set up positions, beyond killing everyone in the city what are the other choices. problem is we don't know who to kill until they take up arms. there is nothing better we can do than kill them in place with them not having a chance to fight back. nothing will demoralize opposition more than to die with no enemy in sight. we did this in afghanistan with devastating affects.

1. If they go underground, apply the "gopher strategy."
2. We can solve the problem of not knowing who to kill in such a way as to minimize American casualties and inspire fear and dread in the enemy. Our leadership lacks the will at this time to do it. More Americans must die first.

Whatever their strategy is, it is not inspiring fear, awe, respect, love, or confidence in friend or foe.

[ZULU]

"How much information do you have on what is happening in Fallujah right now? "

I have just what I see on FOX news and on the Internet - and so do the Iraqi people and terrorists elsewhere. And what I'm seeing makes THEM a lot happier than I am.

"Do you trust the source of that information? "

I trust FOX News.

"Is it possible that Bush and the Generals have better information than you have?"

If they do, it isn't apparent so far.

"Is it possible that folks can be overreacting to events without having sufficient reliable information on which to act?"

1. Fallujah is a Baathist Center
2. They killed four American civilians and mutilated their bodies and then published the pictures, including celebrating Fallujan civilians.
3. General Kimmett gets on TV immediately afterwards and sternly says "We want to find these people and TALK to them"!!!??
4. The U.S. surrounds Fallujah with troops.
5. A convoy of Iraqis is permitted to enter Falluajh with "humanitarian aide" - the kind our murdered civilians were trying to bring them.
6. We annouce aweful consequences if they don't hand over the guilty parties.
7. They negotiate a ceasefire with us.
8. They violate the ceasefire.
9. We threaten aweful consequences.
10. They promise to turn over their weapons.
11. In an insulting show of arrogance and contempt, they dump a bunch of antiquated junk on us - which the whole world once agains views.
12. We threaten aweful consequnces.
13. Bush (yesterday) ordered our troops to take whatever actions necessary to pacify Fallujah.
14. We threaten aweful consequences.
15. Today our troops get orders to pull out and turn over the operation to an Iraqi military force, under an ex-Saddamite General, a force which cut and ran before.
16. Meanwhile we hear rumors about possible WMD in Fallujah, a well-organized insurgency movement, again, in Fallujah, and stories about mysterious convoys moving out of Fallujah to Syria.

If any of the above makes any sense to you, perhaps you should explain it to the American people, for Bush, since he isn't very good at explaining things lately. The Rasmussen report, which ISN'T biased, shows Kerry beating out Bush in the election by 2% points for the first time in several days, and only 42% of the American public supporting his war conduct - the lowest so far.

"I submit that it is easy for us to sit over here with third and fourth hand information from an totally unreliable press and question the decisions of the administration. The Bush administration may be wrong, but they may also be right."

While what you are stating is correct, it is EQUALLY true that public opinion, both here and in Iraq and the rest of the fanatical Islamic world reads the same things into all this that I am reading. Namely that the U.S. can be intimidated by threats of "Arab public opinion" for all that's worth, which isn't much, and the use of accomodating Iraqi civilians as human shields.

If they were able to kill us all yesterday they would have, and they are hardly more inclined to do so if we incinerate Fallujah as we should. On the other hand, an exemplary punishment in Falluajah will make the "moderate" Iraqis all the less eager to comply with the kind of thugs they are apparently assisting and supporting if they thought THEIR neighborhood was next.


"Isn't it a little early to be coming to such rash conclusions?"

I don't think these are rash conclusions. I hate Kerry, Deomcrats and Liberals and think the successful execution of our war on terror, including the subjugation of Iraq - one way or the other - is viatal for our national survival.
Bush was strategically correct in attacking Iraq.

But I really think that Bush and his advisors are making a serious mistake in assuming that people in radically different cultures respond to things the same way that western Europeans and Americans do. What Bush thinks is rational, humane and accomodating, they view as weak, cowardly and despicable. We have to fight the enemy on his terms, not ours or we will loose.

[ZULU]

"How much information do you have on what is happening in Fallujah right now? "

I have just what I see on FOX news and on the Internet - and so do the Iraqi people and terrorists elsewhere. And what I'm seeing makes THEM a lot happier than I am.

"Do you trust the source of that information? "

I trust FOX News.

"Is it possible that Bush and the Generals have better information than you have?"

If they do, it isn't apparent so far.

"Is it possible that folks can be overreacting to events without having sufficient reliable information on which to act?"

1. Fallujah is a Baathist Center
2. They killed four American civilians and mutilated their bodies and then published the pictures, including celebrating Fallujan civilians.
3. General Kimmett gets on TV immediately afterwards and sternly says "We want to find these people and TALK to them"!!!??
4. The U.S. surrounds Fallujah with troops.
5. A convoy of Iraqis is permitted to enter Falluajh with "humanitarian aide" - the kind our murdered civilians were trying to bring them.
6. We annouce aweful consequences if they don't hand over the guilty parties.
7. They negotiate a ceasefire with us.
8. They violate the ceasefire.
9. We threaten aweful consequences.
10. They promise to turn over their weapons.
11. In an insulting show of arrogance and contempt, they dump a bunch of antiquated junk on us - which the whole world once agains views.
12. We threaten aweful consequnces.
13. Bush (yesterday) ordered our troops to take whatever actions necessary to pacify Fallujah.
14. We threaten aweful consequences.
15. Today our troops get orders to pull out and turn over the operation to an Iraqi military force, under an ex-Saddamite General, a force which cut and ran before.
16. Meanwhile we hear rumors about possible WMD in Fallujah, a well-organized insurgency movement, again, in Fallujah, and stories about mysterious convoys moving out of Fallujah to Syria.

If any of the above makes any sense to you, perhaps you should explain it to the American people, for Bush, since he isn't very good at explaining things lately. The Rasmussen report, which ISN'T biased, shows Kerry beating out Bush in the election by 2% points for the first time in several days, and only 42% of the American public supporting his war conduct - the lowest so far.

"I submit that it is easy for us to sit over here with third and fourth hand information from an totally unreliable press and question the decisions of the administration. The Bush administration may be wrong, but they may also be right."

While what you are stating is correct, it is EQUALLY true that public opinion, both here and in Iraq and the rest of the fanatical Islamic world reads the same things into all this that I am reading. Namely that the U.S. can be intimidated by threats of "Arab public opinion" for all that's worth, which isn't much, and the use of accomodating Iraqi civilians as human shields.

If they were able to kill us all yesterday they would have, and they are hardly more inclined to do so if we incinerate Fallujah as we should. On the other hand, an exemplary punishment in Falluajah will make the "moderate" Iraqis all the less eager to comply with the kind of thugs they are apparently assisting and supporting if they thought THEIR neighborhood was next.


"Isn't it a little early to be coming to such rash conclusions?"

I don't think these are rash conclusions. I hate Kerry, Deomcrats and Liberals and think the successful execution of our war on terror, including the subjugation of Iraq - one way or the other - is viatal for our national survival.
Bush was strategically correct in attacking Iraq.

But I really think that Bush and his advisors are making a serious mistake in assuming that people in radically different cultures respond to things the same way that western Europeans and Americans do. What Bush thinks is rational, humane and accomodating, they view as weak, cowardly and despicable. We have to fight the enemy on his terms, not ours or we will loose.

[DandG13]

Let's see, we let the Afghan's take over and what did they do -- let the leaders of the Taliban loose, I screamed in the house the day that was done. We're losing men in that country trying to undo that horrible, terrible mistake. Now, we think that doing the same thing again will work in a city controlled by terrorists? Can anyone even imagine how badly we would have been destroyed in World War II if this type of mentality was employed. It appears we've lost track of what it takes to win a war and all at the expense of soldiers' lives. This is flat wrong.

[ZULU]

"I am still a Bush supporter. My vote in not in question."

Right now, I'm just waiting and observing. I'll never vote for Kerry, but if Bush doesn't stop pandering to the State Department and act like WE won this war, instead of THEM, I might just sit this one out.

"I just want him to fight. I want a President who will lead and fight. Kill our enemies. This generation in the Middle East will never love us. They must fear us enough so they do not take up arms, WMD, or allow terrorists any sanctuary in their countries."

So do I. But increasingly, I am beginning to doubt that Bush is that man. I KNOW Kerry is not. So where does that leave us??

[veryconernedamerican]

well one thing that has to happen is we need to put some troops in harms way in around where ever that sadr is and as soon as they are fired upon level whatever mosque he is in. that place needs to be flattened completely with zero survivors.

[af_vet_1981]

Bush can be that man. Kerry cannot. Even if others let our brethren die in vain, I will not. I will vote. I will vote Bush/Cheney in 2004. That is my duty as a United States Air Force veteran and as an American. I will continue to offer them aggressive constructive criticism so they do the right thing and fight for our liberty and safety.

[ZULU]

Your probably right. The best of a bad bargain.

But I'm still angry and upset about what I see as a policy in Iraq that panders too much to those fanatics there, and I'll be really infuriated if they send American troops into a house-to-house combat mission to "spare civilian lives" in that stinking rat trap when we have the technology to level Fallujah as it deserves to be levelled.

[Polybius]

Get this! Fox just announced there is NO PEACE DEAL in Fallujah. SHEESH!

This cycle of "We Are Back in Vietnam" hysterics seems to repeat itself on FR every 24 hours.

War is a chess game of deception, movement, re-positioning, psychological warfare, shaping the battlefield, waiting for needed air or ground assets to be in position and on and on.

If the insurgents have been cornered in a ceratin section of the town, evacuation the other sections of the town and turning them over to the Iraqi second stringers is not an "abandonment".

"Ceasefires" are announced, from time to time to allow civilians to get out of the battlefield or for other tactical reasons.

The proof is in the results so far. The jihadis are cornered in ther Golan slums and the U.S. is playing with them like a cat plays with a mouse before killing it.

It seems that the main problem with U.S. Psy Ops operations is that everyone back at the Home Front panics beforte the jihadis do.

[WOSG]

A military intelligence officer noted this week that there have been no large car bombings in Baghdad since the Marines surrounded Fallujah in early April. "Fallujah is a place that is rife with terrorist leaders and bomb-makers who are responsible for attacks not just in Fallujah but across Iraq," the officer said.

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FACT OF THE WHOLE FALLUJAH OPERATION.

We've identified the source of our problems. And we've contained it.

[WOSG]

"Only because people grab on to every bit of media speculation like its gospel truth chiseled by our military leadership in granite."

Absolutely true!

Think folks. Dont let inconsistent media reports lead you to think the military is going zigzag wily nilly.

[WOSG]

It's a promising idea to get Iraqi army involved.

If it works, we've solved a problem, although we will regret wistfully not reconstituting the Iraqi army a year earlier and reaping the chance to avoid some of the problems we've faced since.

If it doesnt work, well, it will tell us that disbanding the Iraqi army was best after all.

[swarthyguy]

>>>The brave story of how 500 holy warriors of Allah held off the entire US military.

Bingo. It's been a month since the Americans were bbq'ed in broad daylight.

And as of yet, let alone the US flag, but the US military does not have dominance and control of Fallujah.

All the lipstick won't make this pig look good. Yes, we're grinding them down and tenderising them. But....
you have the perpeption of the Arab world down pat. The more they hold out, the more glorious they look.

Every day is a victory for the jihadis.

[TShaunK]

I have supported this war a 100% since the beggining...but now this is officialy Vietnam revisted...huge fxck up,the piss poor planning and subsequent compounding of mistakes will continue to make this a long drawn out democrat type war...if the Bush approach continues to resemble a Kerry approach...whats the difference in November??....discustingly stupid!...either you win in a dominating fashion or get the hell out...every kid lost in half measures is a waste.

[oceanview]

worrying about the "arab street" is like waiting for the new york times editorial page to become conservative. they have their own reality, not tied to any real facts. no matter what happens in fallujah, they will claim to have "won". even a MOAB isn't going to change that. the insurgency in fallujah is being put down, perhaps not via the carpet bombing many would like to see, but its being done. And Al-Sadr is not succeeding in forming a broader militia, again, that is a reality even though he hasn't been MOABed to satisfy the crowd here.

[WOSG]

"If he allows this idiocy over Fallujah to continue, I may very well sit out the election. "

What idiocy? The idiocy of killing terrorist scum day in day like our marines have done? The real idiocy is believing phony media reports about 'pullbacks' that are really repositionings.

You do realize after we defeat terrorists in Fallujah we will pull out and let Iraqi police patrol the city. that was the plan from day one.

have you noticed that IED and bombings have gone down in baghdad area? terrorists changes strategies. old one wasnt working. The killing of the contractors - it was a deliberately outrageous procovation designed to get the US forces to come in to fallujah. The enemy WANTED house to house fighting. Why? To make it look like a civil war had broken out, because they foolishly think the US would be stupid, kill alot of civilians, which would outrage the Arab world and force us to withdraw. That was their plan.

Well, guess what by "going slow" we *defeated their strategy* ... they wanted open warfare so it would look like civil war. they still got some video and the fake 'relief convoy' ... but Iraq didnt rise up. We defeated their plans by not killing so many civilians.
We deflected it. That deflection over, we have to continue to show we want to defuse this while NOT letting terrorists get away.

[WOSG]

Defeatist nonsense.

If you dont want a Vietnam repeat, dont engage in such abject defeatism.

"You let Americans get butchered, let our Marines die in vain, pull out in the face of a weak cowardly evil enemy"

We are doing NONE OF THE ABOVE. There is no PULLOUT in the face of the enemy!!!

And btw we 'won' Vietnam in the years 1969-1973. Using a succesful counterinsurgency campaign and bombing of the north, by 1973, we had acheived a peace treaty that preserved south vietnam. our war aims were acheived. Those goals were destroyed in 1974-1975 because weak anti-war cowards refused to support South Vietnam at all post 1973 treaty, and after Nixon resigned, the North realized they could attack the south. 1975 takeover of the south was like a whole new war in vietnam, regular army of the north just rolled into south vietnam and directly defeated the south. USA didnt lift a finger when Communist Hanoi breached the treaty of 1973 that we both signed.

[mississippi red-neck]

On O'Reily last night the two military guys said since we had declared victory that the it was the State Department that was calling the shots. Sure looks like it.

If GW has turned this over to Powell, we've lost the war and he's lost the election. It looks like once again the politicians have snatched defeat from the Jaws of victory and have got our troops killed for nothing. They haven't done anything but create another West Bank.