Fallujah's farms offer respite from city fighting

[thedrifter]

Fallujah's farms offer respite from city fighting

By: DARRIN MORTENSON - Staff Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq ---- Just a mile from where Marines and rebels are busy killing each other in this embattled city, other American troops are getting on fine with locals, making medical house calls and sharing home-cooked meals.

Marines from Camp Pendleton's Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment are spread out around the northwest corner of Fallujah where the city's cramped urban quarters quickly melt into the marshy farmland along the banks of the Euphrates River.

While two-thirds of the company's men have been engaged in heavy fighting along the urban fringe, the other third has been stationed among the friendly farm folk who don't seem to want much to do with the anti-American cause.


"It's like another world," 1st Lt. Ross Schellhaas, Fox Company's executive officer, said Thursday after returning from a patrol to a roadblock near some fields. "We're doing more of the SASO (security and stabilization operations) stuff. It's more hearts and minds over here."

Before the Marines arrived in this rebel-infested Sunni heartland west of Baghdad in March, they had trained for several months on how to win over Iraqis to the coalition cause by politely inspecting vehicles, smiling and waving, and handing out candy to the kids ---- all the while going after the few "bad guys" they said were spoiling it for everyone else.

But within days of arriving in the region, the Marines were embroiled in a costly guerrilla war. And within weeks, they had besieged Fallujah.

Since surrounding the city on April 5, the Marines have waged a bloody fight to maintain their stranglehold on the city and isolate the insurgents inside.

For a while, it was all-out war, and every resident was a potential guerrilla.

But when most of the fighting stopped during a cease-fire ---- which has been honored enough to keep U.S. and Iraqi officials talking about a possible political solution to the standoff ---- the Marines found friends among Fallujah's farmers and other rural residents.

Among a population they say needs to be watched, but not always feared, the Marines' humanitarian training has come in handy.

"We feel pretty comfortable here," said Sgt. Cody Boswell, 25, of Salem, Ore., who led a patrol checking cars with passengers who wanted to carry food and supplies through the military cordon into the Marine-held security zone between the Euphrates, the main rail line and the city.

"Neighbors bring us food," Boswell said, waving a family across. "We help them get their animals across, carry food and fuel and stuff ---- basically help with anything we can do within our power. It's more hearts and minds here, but still you have to be on guard; you never know."

In the nearly three weeks the platoon has controlled the zone, the troops have found only one suspected insurgent: a man with a sniper rifle tucked under his car seat.

"They seem like they're another village ---- not Fallujah," Boswell said of the locals. "One man even said, 'If my son was Mujahadeen, I would turn him in myself.' I said, 'Wow! Well. O.K. then!'"

Schellhaas said the Marines have paid local farmers hundreds of dollars for damage done to their fields. And some have given residents cash for cab rides from the roadblock so that they could travel around the city to a point in the south where some residents are allowed in to check on their homes or bring food and supplies to their families still inside.

He said many who arrive at the checkpoint say they want to return to their homes to live in the city, despite the fighting.

"I feel guilty because we've had such an impact on their lives," he said. "They say they had more freedom under Saddam Hussein. I just try to tell them that when we get this whole thing straightened out, they can get back to their normal lives. But this just isn't a place you want to take your family ---- at least not yet."

After searching a dilapidated Land Cruiser taxi for guns and explosives, Lance Cpl. Carlos Martinez told a man that he and his boys could get back in the vehicle and continue down a dusty farm road along the tracks. They obeyed; the man acted a bit uptight but the boys were smiling and chatting in hushed tones as they pointed to the Marines' weapons.

Martinez said he sympathized with the people for the inconvenience the Marines' cordon has caused. Some have fields and property on both sides of the Marines' lines, and have to be searched every time they come and go.

For the most part, he said, they are understanding. A few, however, do get testy.

"Of course!" Martinez said. "I would be, too. But most of them around here are pretty nice."

With the help of "Sammy," the Marines' East African interpreter, the troops chatted and joked with locals at the roadblock Thursday.

They asked men what their families needed, explained and re-explained the reason for the cordon around Fallujah, and promised better days to come.

The troops seemed to know many of the locals personally and asked questions about family members that only a friend would know to ask.

Lance Cpl. Joseph McCarthy, 21, of Fallbrook, squatted to give candy to a cute little girl and two skinny boys. He smiled and laughed when one of the boys tried to bargain for more.

He said that having such close interaction and being able to help Iraqis was more of what he expected to be doing when he deployed to Iraq.

Like most of the men in 2/1 ---- as the battalion is known ---- McCarthy spent several months in Nasiriyah, Iraq, last year during the official war. While they were fired on occasionally by snipers, they mostly walked freely among the people and said they felt a bond of friendship by the time they left.

Out at this particularly friendly edge of Fallujah Thursday, McCarthy and his cohorts seemed like they were doing their best to build a similar legacy here, despite the violence that rages nearby.

While the other troops piled onto Humvees to move on to the next stop Thursday, and while Sammy the translator paid one of the neighbors for some bread and eggs for the troops' dinner, McCarthy helped an Iraqi boy cross the checkpoint.

With a propane tank over his shoulder and the little boy tugging at his arm, McCarthy swaggered towards the tracks.

"Hearts and minds, gents," he said out of one side of his mouth. "Hearts and minds."




Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph McCarthy, 21, from Fallbrook, hands candy out to Iraqi children who approached him at a military checkpoint west of Fallujah, Iraq on Thursday.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004..._414_22_04.txt


Ellie

[thedrifter]

U.S. Moves to Rehire Some From Baath Party, Military

By Robin Wright, Washington Post Staff Writer

The United States is moving to rehire former members of Iraq (news - web sites)'s ruling Baath Party and senior Iraqi military officers fired after the ouster of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), in an effort to undo the damage of its two most controversial policies in Iraq, according to U.S. officials.


The U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, proposed the policy shifts to broaden the strategy to entice the powerful Sunni minority back into the political fold and weaken support for the insurgency in the volatile Sunni Triangle, two of the most persistent challenges for the U.S.-led occupation, the officials say. Both policies are at the heart of national reconciliation, increasingly important as the occupation nears an end.


"Iraq has a highly marginalized Sunni minority, and the more that people of standing can be taken off the pariah list, the more that community will become involved politically," said a senior envoy from a country in the U.S.-led coalition.


The Bush administration is fleshing out details, which it hopes to conclude this week. But the United States, backed by Britain, has decided in principle to, as officials variously characterized it, "fix" or "soften" rigid rules that led to the firing of Iraqis in the Baath Party from top government positions and jobs in such fields as teaching and medicine.


The U.S.-led coalition is already bringing back senior military officers to provide leadership to the fragile new Iraqi army, with more than half a dozen generals from Hussein's military appointed to top jobs in the past week alone, U.S. officials said. Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, chief of Central Command, is working to identify other commanders to bring back, officials added.


"The decisions made a year ago have bedeviled the situation on the ground ever since. Walking back these policies is a triumph of the view in the field over policies originally crafted in Washington," said a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq policy. Ironically, the two policies were the first actions taken by Bremer, who brought them from Washington, when he arrived in Baghdad to assume leadership of the U.S-led occupation last May.


The administration says neither move is a reversal, but foreign policy experts said it will appear that way in practice to Iraqis. "We are reviewing implementation of policies to look at how to better balance the desire to employ resident expertise with the need for justice," said National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack.


The first move to revise policy on former Baathists will be to reinstate about 11,000 teachers and hundreds of professors fired after Hussein's demise last year, U.S. officials said. "These are many of the people who were treated unfairly by the system. Their Baathist status did not reflect their role in the party," said a senior official in the Coalition Provisional Authority.


By eventually getting thousands of other well-trained Sunnis back in jobs critical to Iraq's revival, the long-term goal is to incorporate Sunnis in post-Hussein Iraq.


"More broadly, [this strategy] is again reaching out to the Sunnis and making them feel part of the process and investing them in the process while also not alienating the rest of Iraq, particularly the Shiites and the Kurds," said a senior administration official familiar with the discussions.


Baathists in the top four levels of the party were fired and the military was dismantled because they were seen as the primary instruments of Hussein's Sunni-dominated government and their continued presence as a threat to the transition, even though vast numbers of Iraqis joined largely to ensure employment or even survival, U.S. officials now concede. They were allowed to appeal for job reinstatement, a process that has proved slow and unwieldy -- and has alienated vast numbers of Sunnis who are the main targets, U.S. officials say.


The administration is considering a range of options, such as a proactive approach that would identify other groups of Sunni professionals to reinstate, or expediting the current process by creating a new commission to adjudicate the appeals. The committee charged with "de-Baathification" is headed by Ahmed Chalabi, a Shiite Muslim and controversial politician on the Governing Council.


The administration has not decided how far up the four top layers of the Baath Party to go. But the U.S.-led occupation authority wants only Iraqis who have clean records to be reinstated in government jobs or military positions, U.S. and occupation authority officials said.


The two policies have been under fire inside and outside the administration for months.


"Those policies should never have been put in place because there wasn't enough information on the Baath Party from the outset, and the effort to dismantle the party was ill-conceived and based on ignorance, even though it was clear something had to be done. The CPA went about it willy-nilly," said Timothy Carney, a former U.S. ambassador who served in Iraq in the first months after the occupation. "Dismantling the military was done in haste as well."


The escalating confrontation between U.S. troops and Sunni insurgents around Fallujah over the past month has accelerated the debate within the administration, a senior State Department official said. The administration wants to balance military pressure with political and economic incentives to ensure alienation among Sunnis does not deepen, he said.


The biggest concern and unknown is how Iraq's Shiite majority, historically repressed by the Sunni minority, will react to the two moves, U.S. officials said. As the United States brings back military officers, it is paying special attention to the balance among ethnic and religious factions. The first three former generals reinstated this week included a Sunni Muslim, a Shiite and a Kurd.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...32562_2004apr21


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Leaders in Fallujah have days not weeks to comply
Submitted by: Headquarters Marine Corps Media
Story Identification Number: 2004422175143
Story by Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service



WASHINGTON(April 22, 2004) -- It's a matter of "days not weeks" for Fallujans to demonstrate they are serious about honoring the agreement they made earlier this week, Coalition Provisional Authority spokesmen in Iraq said today.

Speaking during a Baghdad press conference, senior spokesman Dan Senor said Fallujans must turn over illegal heavy weapons and they must work "to remove foreign fighters, drug users, former Special Republican Guard, former Fedayeen Saddam and other serious, dangerous and violent criminals operating out of Fallujah."

U.S. Marines stand ready to restart offensive operations in Fallujah. The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force declared a unilateral cease-fire in the city April 9. Members of the Iraqi Governing Council have spoken with officials in Fallujah in hopes of defusing the situation and getting anti-coalition forces there under control.

"While we continue to be hopeful based on the intentions of those with whom we have been negotiating ? we do caution that we are in a mode right now of days, not weeks," Senor said. "Time is running out. We want to reach a peaceful resolution to the Fallujah situation."

Coalition military spokesman Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt called on those inside Fallujah to demonstrate leadership and convince the anti-coalition elements to lay down their arms. He said the coalition does not want more bloodshed, but is ready to resume offensive operations if needed. He said a further fight in the city can be avoided "if those leaders show leadership and go back and persuade the people that are holding their city hostage that this is the best deal that they're going to get."

Kimmitt said the heavy-arms turn-in has been something of a joke. The weapons turned over to Marines fit into the bed of a pick-up truck and were mostly outdated weapons or training rounds. "(We're) looking for a serious engagement, serious discussions from people who can deliver and not bring in rubbish or trash or junk," Kimmitt said. "(We're looking for) the heavy weapons that have been responsible for the recent engagements in Fallujah."

Operations continue throughout Iraq. There were 10 attacks in the north over the past 24 hours, Kimmitt said. Five of those attacks were aimed at Task Force Olympia personnel or members of the Iraqi security forces.

In the 1st Infantry Division's north-central area, Big Red One soldiers conducted a series of raids against safe houses near Balad, used by militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Kimmitt said. The raids resulted in the detention of six targeted individuals and 15 other men.

The 1st Cavalry Division's Task Force Baghdad captured 18 enemy personnel and confiscated a large amount of ammunition over the past 24 hours.

In the western zone, three attacks took place against coalition and Iraqi security forces. Kimmitt said coalition forces continue to see anti-coalition forces fighting from fortified positions, misusing mosques as weapons storage sites and using them as command and control nodes.

Outside Fallujah, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force continues aggressive patrols and offensive operations outside Fallujah. The Marines had to halt the movement of humanitarian assistance into Fallujah due to attacks on coalition forces. They have since resumed, military officials in Baghdad said.

In Basra, coalition forces are helping local authorities recover after the April 21 terror attacks, Kimmitt said. A total of 68 Iraqis were killed in a series of car bomb attacks. Many of those the terrorists killed were schoolchildren.


http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2...B5?opendocument


Ellie