by Bing West
Yet the Marines had launched two air strikes and fought an all-day battle in Fallujah at the time of Wolfowitz’s visit and had followed up by dropping four five-hundred-pound bombs and two thousand-pound bombs on a terrorist safe house. A few days later the chief of staff of the MEF, Col J. C. Coleman, publicly presented an optimistic view about the trends in the city. “Fallujah,” Coleman told the New York Times, “is moving ever so slowly in the right direction.”
Wolfowitz was taken aback. While intelligence reports pointed to an accretion of insurgent rule in Fallujah, some Iraqi and American officials were refusing to admit the fact. Trained for battle yet fiercely loyal to orders, the Marines were struggling with contradictory impulses. They wanted to be optimistic about the Fallujah Brigade while not appearing naÏve about the enemy. They rejected suggestions that suicide car bombings in other cities were linked to Fallujah “because you build truck bombs near where you detonate them.” CPA officials who had been excluded from the decision to create the Fallujah Brigade wondered whether some Marines had been affected by Stockholm syndrome and were “trying to put lipstick on a pig.”
The deputy secretary of defense came away from his trip to Iraq convinced that turning Fallujah over to former Baathists and Iraqi generals was a serious mistake. “Fallujah is not a model,” Wolfowitz told CNN. “I mean, Fallujah was probably the worst place in the country.”
By the end of June, the press was describing Fallujah as “a nest of vipers” controlled by “mujahedeen-run fiefdoms” and a training ground for “the new jihadists.” The Washington Post ran a front-page story saying that Iraqi and American officials believed the decision to pull back the Marines had created “an incubator for insurgency recruits.”
Speaking with reporters as he turned over command of the JTF at the beginning of July, LtGen Sanchez criticized the decision to cancel the Marine assault. “The lesson [from Fallujah] is to use massive force,” he said, “not precision strikes.” In April Sanchez had warned Conway that White House support for attacking Fallujah had been undercut by the objections of the British, but Sanchez had remained firm in his belief that a full-scale attack was the only sensible military option.
After Sanchez left, Fallujah continued to deteriorate. As the residents of the city sweltered in the July heat, Janabi found his leadership position challenged by an upstart, Omar Hadid, a former electrician who lived with his mother in a lower-class section south of the Government Center. Janabi enjoyed the perquisites and prestige of representing the Mujahedeen Shura Council that met in a spacious mosque a few blocks from his upscale compound. Equality among men was a principle tenet of the Islamic religion, and among the insurgents, unlike the case in the Iraqi Army, leaders were encouraged to rise from the ranks. Like Al Pacino’s character in the movie Scarface, Hadid, a thick-set man in his forties with a bushy beard and a tangle of long black hair, combined natural leadership with a flair for offhand, blood-chilling savagery. Zarqawi took him under his wing in April, and by July Hadid was a local legend, the survivor of numerous brushes with the Marines and the killer of traitors. Local youths looked up to him, and he reciprocated by making the rounds at night, stopping by gang houses to chat and leave fresh bread.
His leadership threatened, Janabi responded by embracing more tightly the extreme jihad precepts of Wahhabism. He became less the cunning businessman seeking a profit and more an advocate of anti-Western violence for its own sake. The Asia Times referred to Fallujah as “the Islamic Emirate,” where the mujahedeen believed, that having pushed out the Marines, they could win the rest of Iraq, just as the Taliban had recently ruled Afghanistan.
On the Marine side, Toolan had emerged as the primary point of contact for negotiating with Iraqis of all stripes in Fallujah. LtGen Conway was busy coordinating with the new U.S. military and Iraqi teams in Baghdad, and MajGen Mattis operated from Ramadi. By July some said that sitting near Mattis in negotiations was like watching a wolverine circling a baited trap. As Toolan took the reins in the daily sessions, he conveyed in measured tones a firm message: Iraqis had to stand up for their country. At the end of one session replete with doggerel, he acknowledged to a reporter that he was frustrated in his search for real Iraqi leaders.
Latif never established leadership over the Fallujah Brigade. The second-in-command, Major General Abdullah Muhamdi, exerted more influence over the soldiers but was distrusted. He once claimed Marines were harassing a family near the railroad station. A skeptical LtCol Olson insisted that Abdullah and Latif immediately accompany him to investigate. When they arrived at the house in question, the bewildered family said they had had no dealings with Marines. Latif turned on Abdullah, calling him a liar and a disgrace. Leaving behind a glowering Abdullah, Latif then drove back to Baghdad. That was his last hurrah. By late July Latif, knowing he had no influence, no longer visited Fallujah.
By August, Abdullah avoided the Marines entirely, except to pick up pay. Suleiman emerged as the reliable military leader, just as he had in February. Not strong enough to stand up to the insurgents inside the city, he kept his battalion together on the peninsula west of the trestle bridge where the American contractors had been mutilated. Toolan drove over weekly to chat with him. Once while they were talking outside, they came under fire and Suleiman stepped in front of Toolan, shouting at the shooters to stop. Another time an IED exploded near Toolan’s Humvee. Toolan stopped and called Suleiman on his cell phone, testily suggesting perhaps he had been set up. Fifteen minutes later Suleiman drove up and escorted Toolan to his compound. From then on Toolan was provided an escort on every visit.
Based on more than a dozen meetings, Toolan had concluded that Suleiman was a straight shooter. He was a small warlord on a small peninsula. His family was highly regarded in the Abu Mahdi tribe, supposedly staunch fighters, and each night he drove fifteen kilometers to his guarded house in Habineah. He avoided trips into Fallujah, where Jabar, the other National Guard commander, stayed holed up at the Government Center. Suleiman warned Toolan that inside the city the Fallujah Brigade answered to Janabi, who was becoming “more bad.” As long as he minded his own business and retained the loyalty of armed followers, he was left alone. Suleiman, who knew all the sheikhs and insurgent leaders, betrayed no trusts and received no support from any officials of the Iraqi government. The writ of Baghdad did not extend to Fallujah.
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If Fallujah was the worst place in Iraq, it seemed in July to also be a backwater. While it was lurching out of control, it was isolated. That still left the question of how to proceed against the Sunni insurgency as a whole.
The end of June had marked the return of Iraqi sovereignty. Ambassador Bremer dissolved the CPA, turned the country over to an appointed interim government, and flew home. The new Iraqi government faced the tasks of quelling the Sunni insurgency, reassuring the skeptical Shiites about elections in January, marginalizing Sadr, and rebuilding the country. Of 2,300 construction projects promised by the CPA, only 140 were under way. The return of sovereignty had no noticeable effect on security in the country. The CPA plan had envisioned twelve thousand trained soldiers in the field by June; instead, there were about four thousand. Over the previous year the Iraqi security forces had not emerged as a significant force.
The new American ambassador was John Negroponte, a seasoned diplomat. In July Negroponte doubled the size of the Iraqi security budget that had been advocated by Ambassador Bremer and increased the police force by 40 percent. It would be a year, though, before the funding increase resulted in trained Iraqis on the streets.
The central government was too weak either to provide security or to enforce allegiance to the commonweal. Having dominated the Shiites and Kurds for centuries, the Sunni-based insurgents had the self-confidence to reassert control the moment the Coalition army left. Yet the Coalition army no longer decided how and when to combat the insurgents. Decisions about Fallujah and all other locales rested with the interim Iraqi government in Baghdad. The newly appointed presid
ent, Sheikh Ghazi Yawar, and the prime minister, Ayad Allawi, had both ardently argued against the Marine offensive in April. They were enthusiastic boosters of selectively reempowering Sunni Baathists. They would decide what to do about the Fallujah Brigade.
On the American side, there was a new commander as well. Four-star Army General George Casey had been appointed to the new post of Commander of the Multinational Force. Casey, who came from a distinguished military family, was comfortable in command, with the knack of treating everyone as an equal.
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At the end of July Gen Casey met with Mattis in Ramadi. Casey began his visit by listening to the troops who did the fighting, and Battalion 2/4 was the most combat-seasoned unit in Iraq. The battalion averaged three attacks a day from small arms, indirect fire, or IEDs, and it had taken 31 killed and 284 wounded.
Casey wanted to know if Iraqi security forces could take over local control by December. No, the Marines said. The insurgents had changed tactics since they tried and failed to stand toe to toe with the Marines in April. The insurgents had reverted to IEDs and shoot and scoot attacks against the Americans while assassinating any Iraqi police or National Guard who dared to challenge them. The result was a city where the Americans held the main avenue, while the insurgents controlled the marketplace by both intimidating the people and gaining their sympathy.
“Every neighborhood knows Joe Muj, yet the Iraqi police say they can’t go where the people don’t want them,” Capt Bronzi said. “And they won’t patrol with us because the enemy threatens them and their families.”
Prior to the battalion’s arrival in March, the civilians like Keith Mines and the officers in the previous battalion had immersed themselves in the byzantine politics of Sunni Islamists, tribal sheikhs, former Baathists, and opportunists of every persuasion. There were endless meetings with sheikhs, imams, and local officials. There were lists of the likes and dislikes of every subtribe. All sheikhs claimed to have influence and therefore to deserve payment. General Abizaid had personally met with the sheikhs.
LtCol Kennedy told Casey the insurgency had matured, weakening the influence of tribal sheikhs. The police and National Guard remained hunkered down in their compounds, permitting the insurgents to move freely wherever the Marines were not present. Contractors trying to improve even the basics like the water plant were scared away.
Kennedy placed more stock in Governor Burgis, a former police chief who was struggling to bring municipal services and hope in the future. Kennedy agreed with the assessment of the diplomat Keith Mines that Burgis was first rate. He was honest, hardworking, and respected by the sheikhs. Burgis, though, was convinced his office was penetrated by spies. Kennedy kept a platoon on duty twenty-four hours a day at the government center to protect Burgis, while the police guarded his home.
General Casey said the Iraqi forces had to face up to the basic challenge: It’s your country—now fight for it. “That’s what they should do,” Kennedy agreed. But the Iraqis were scared, intimidated.
A few days after Casey’s visit, the insurgents attacked the governor’s house while he was away. His two sons were kidnapped and the house burned. The policemen on duty dropped their weapons and fled without raising any alarm. Burgis asked Kennedy to please not help him; any American interference would doom his sons. A week later a video on Al Jazeera showed Governor Burgis, with tears running down his face, apologizing for betraying Islam by working for the infidels. After Burgis had been humiliated before millions, his sons were released and he fled to Jordan with his family. The next day Prime Minister Allawi shut down Al Jazeera’s office in Baghdad.
Casey and the new Iraqi government were facing a crisis of much larger proportions than the setbacks in Fallujah and Ramadi. Sadr was again leading a revolt that threatened to convulse the Shiite south and doom the government. On August 5, after attacking the main police station in Najaf, Sadr took up lodging inside a fortified compound on the outskirts of Mosque of Ali, a sacred site that attracted Shiite pilgrims from around the world. Grand Ayatollah Ali Husaini al Sistani and the elder clerics of the Iraqi Shiites also resided in Najaf. Sadr represented a mortal and immediate threat. If he emerged as the leader among the Shiites, Iraq would be thrown into chaos.
Casey moved swiftly, sending the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit to cordon off Sadr’s militia inside Najaf. The tactical challenge was to apply force while not damaging the holy sites that Sadr’s men were using as hideouts. Day by day in temperatures of 120 degrees, Battalion 1/4 inched forward. They fought from tombstone to crypt across the gigantic cemetery outside the Ali mosque where Sadr’s 120mm mortars fired with impunity from the courtyard. The tankers fought with IV needles inserted in their arms. Every three hours they got out of their tanks and lay on stretchers while pints of liquid flowed back into their veins. Once rehydrated, they went back into the fight.
In the second week in August, the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment joined the fight, bringing in armor to squeeze the militia from the east. Daily, the two battalion commanders—LtCol John Mayer (1/4) and Lieutenant Colonel Jim Rainey (2-7)—had to explain to their troops why they could not fire back at certain sites. The tactical end was in sight, but the soldiers and Marines weren’t permitted to capture Sadr or to finish off his militia due to concern about the political consequences. Instead, Prime Minister Allawi engaged in a tortuous minuet, attempting to negotiate through a maze of intermediaries with the crafty Sadr.
The relationship between American military force and Iraqi diplomacy was ambiguous. Allawi set the parameters, and Casey executed. The Americans did the fighting but could not finish the fight—that was Allawi’s call. Allawi proved as changeable as Sadr, issuing ultimatums, then backing down, then allowing the U.S. forces to press forward, then calling a halt and urging Sadr to negotiate. American forces pummeled Sadr’s militia for two weeks, drawing the noose around them tighter and tighter. On August 20 the militia was down to its last stand. Under pressure from Sistani, at the last minute Allawi allowed Sadr and his henchmen to go free. As in April, Sadr had provoked a rebellion, lost a battle, and remained at large.
The American military role in local governance had diminished since Casey had directed that local security be taken over by the Iraqis. It was no longer the responsibility of tactical leaders—battalion and company commanders—to meet daily with Iraqi politicians, sheikhs, and officials to work out the everyday problems of municipal governance. Much of the training and equipping of the Iraqi security forces would now be done by a training unit separate from the U.S. divisions, commanded by Army LtGen David Petraeus. The details and machinations characteristic of a colonial administration, such as trying to play one sheikh off against another, became less relevant once Iraq was again a sovereign nation.
The insurgency was a confederation of Baathists seeking a return to power, Islamic extremists, criminals, former military and intelligence officers, radical Sunni imams, and young men motivated by revenge or a desire to fight against the infidel occupiers. Americans could not drive ideological wedges among the various insurgent groups, but Allawi believed he could.
Allawi was playing a complicated game, reaching out with blandishments to the Sunni and Shiite rebels while employing the American forces as his hammer. He used the channels he had set up in April to continue to meet with Jamal and Janabi, who were sending insurgents in stolen police cars from Fallujah to join Sadr’s rebels. That military contribution was trivial; the morale implications were more troublesome. In Mattis’s view, the clandestine negotiations by the Iraqi government encouraged the insurgents and delayed the inevitable day of reckoning.
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While the major fight in Najaf was playing out, Col Toolan was working patiently to encourage the National Guard under LtCol Suleiman. A black belt in karate with a good sense of humor, Suleiman had become the regiment’s favorite Iraqi officer. He kept his word and never curried favor. He was trying to walk a fine line, staying independent of the Americans while
avoiding a blood feud with the hard men in town.
In mid-July the house of Suleiman’s bodyguard had been blown up, and then the unfortunate man had been kidnapped and presumed killed. Flyers had been distributed in Fallujah urging the death of “Suleiman the traitor.” Although Toolan wanted his Marines to patrol with the Iraqi soldiers, he accepted in good faith Suleiman’s refusals.
“Colonel Suleiman is my friend. I’ve worked with him for five months,” he said in late July. “When he tells me ‘this I cannot do and keep my family alive,’ I believe him.”
On August 9 one of Suleiman’s officers, a captain, was kidnapped and taken to the Maqady Mosque in midtown Fallujah. An angry Suleiman called Toolan and said he was going to get the captain—a member of his tribe—back. Toolan asked him to wait for a backup force of Marines. No, Suleiman said, I have to take care of this myself.
Dressed in workout clothes, Suleiman raced over to the mosque with a dozen soldiers, where an imam accused him and the kidnapped officer of conniving with the Americans. Suleiman slapped him across the face and drove off, shouting that he expected the officer to be released or he was returning with his whole battalion. There were reports of an ambush and a brief firefight as Suleiman drove back to his compound on the peninsula. Over the next hour insurgents gathered outside the gates, brandishing RPGs.