TURNING POINT FALLUJAH
How US Atrocities Sparked The Iraqi Resistance
30 April 2005
http://www.j-n-v.org/AW_briefings/JNV_briefing081.htm
Posted: 30 April 2005
IGNITION POINT FOR THE RESISTANCE
Two years ago today (30 April 2005), reports appeared
in Western newspapers of a major incident in the
Western Iraqi city of Fallujah. On the very day that
these reports were published, more shootings by US
soldiers occurred, cementing the hatred of local
people for the occupation forces, and marking the
beginning of a spriral of violence which made Fallujah
the epicentre of the growing Iraqi insurgency.
THE GROZNY OPTION
Fallujah, a city of 300,000 citizens, has been the
scene of several major turning points in the
post-invasion period. The last crisis was in November
2004, with a full-scale invasion by Marines and
others, which left much of Fallujah looking like the
Chechen city of Grozny.
Dr Hafid al-Dulaimi, head of Fallujah's compensation
commission, reports that 36,000 homes were destroyed,
along with 8,400 shops. Quoting this estimate,
Jonathan Steele and Dhar Jamail draw comparisons with
Guernica and Grozny: 'This decade's unforgettable
monument to brutality and overkill is Falluja, a
textbook case of how not to handle an insurgency, and
a reminder that unpopular occupations will always
degenerate into desperation and atrocity.' (Guardian,
27 April 2005, p. 25)
THE NONVIOLENT ALTERNATIVE
One justification offered for the November assault was
the need to break the hold of the terrorists in
Fallujah, and restore the authority of the interim
Iraqi government.
However, in October 2004, local insurgent leaders
voted overwhelmingly to accept broad conditions set by
the Iraqi government, including demands that they
eject foreign fighters from the city, turn over all
heavy weapons, dismantle illegal checkpoints and allow
the Iraqi National Guard to enter the city. In turn,
the insurgents set their own conditions, which
included a halt to U.S. attacks on the city and
acknowledgment by the military that women and children
have been among the casualties in U.S. strikes.
(Washington Post, 28 Oct. 2004, p. A21)
A later offer was put forward by a (mainly Sunni)
coalition, including the Muslim Clerics Association,
for a plan to establish the rule of law in those
areas through peaceful means, on the basis of six
measures, including a demand that U.S. forces remain
confined to bases in the month before balloting. This
was described as a dramatic shift by Sunni groups
which had previously insisted that no election would
be legitimate until Western troops left Iraq.
This initiative is very significant, said an
official involved in establishing the transitional
government. Theyre no longer saying, <Were not
participating because the country is occupied.>
Theyre saying, <The government is not right. The only
way we can make it right is by elections.> If you look
at their demands, theyre not impossible. They are
things that can be discussed.
Larry Diamond, who served in the U.S.-led occupation
authority, said If theres a chance that this could
be the beginning of political transformation that
could change the situation on the ground, I think
weve got to take it. (Washington Post, 6 Nov. 2004,
p. A01)
These offers were brushed aside and erased from the
record. They might not have worked, but they were not
tried, and they were not even part of the mainstream
debate over the invasion. The US was not prepared to
accept a non-military solution that would have
hampered its operational freedom in Iraq.
It was better that tens of thousands of homes be
destroyed, thousands of families be driven out as
refugees, and an unknown number of civilians be killed
by artillery fire, phosphorus shells, and explosive
charges in the US onslaught.
ORIGINS: 28 APRIL 2003
But how did Fallujah become the heart of the Iraqi
insurgency? For the answer we must turn back to the
events of April 2003, when US troops entered the
peaceful city of Fallujah and occupied the local
secondary school.
Local people angry about the US occupation, and
demanding the re-opening of the school, demonstrated
outside the school on the evening of 28 April, nearly
three weeks after the fall of the regime. US soldiers
fired on the crowd, killing 13 civilians immediately.
This is the same number of civilians as was killed by
British soldiers in Derry in Northern Ireland on
Bloody Sunday in 1972. The Fallujah massacre was
Iraq's Bloody Sunday, a similarly potent injustice
sparking armed resistance.
THE FIRST MASSACRE
The official US account was that 25 armed civilians,
mixed in with the crowd and also positioned on nearby
rooftops, fired on the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne,
leading to a fire-fight. (BBC News Online, 29 April
2003) Phil Reeves, a reporter for the Independent on
Sunday, conducted a careful independent investigation
and concluded that the official story was a highly
implausible version of events.
Witnesses interviewed by Mr Reeves stated that there
was some shooting in the air in the general vicinity,
but it was nowhere near the crowd. US Lieutenant
Colonel Eric Nantz admitted that the bloodshed
occurred after celebratory firing, but he claimed
hat the firing came from the crowd. (BBC News Online,
29 April 2003)
However, all the witnesses Phil Reeves could find
agreed that there was no fire-fight nor any shooting
at the school, and that the crowd had no guns. The
Independent journalist observed:
'The evidence at the scene overwhelmingly supports
this. Al-Kaat primary and secondary school is a
yellow concrete building about the length and height
of seven terraced houses located in a walled compound.
The soldiers fired at people gathered below them.
There are no bullet marks on the facade of the school
or the perimeter wall in front of it. The top floors
of the houses directly opposite, from where the troops
say they were fired on, are also unmarked. Their upper
windows are intact.' (Independent on Sunday, 4 May
2003, p. 17)
There were bullet holes in an upper window, but they
were on another side of the school building.
(Independent, 30 April 2003, p. 2) The Telegraphs
report of the bullet holes failed to mention this
fact. (p. 10)
Dr Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali told reporters at Fallujah
Hospital, Medical crews were shot by [US] soldiers
when they tried to get to the injured people.
(Mirror, 30 April 2003, p. 11)
THE SECOND MASSACRE
Despite the atrocity that had been visited on them,
the people of Fallujah continued to protest
nonviolently. A demonstration was held on 30 April,
two days after the school massacre.
During the protest, US troops shot dead two more
unarmed demonstrators.
No US soldiers were injured or killed, despite claims
that they had been fired on first.
Reporters from the British Daily Mirror were six feet
from the US soldier who opened fire on the
demonstrators. A young boy hurled a sandal at the US
jeepwith a M2 heavy machine gun post on the backas
it drove past in a convoy of other vehicles. The
soldier in charge of the machine gun ducked down,
then pressed his thumb on the trigger to unleash a
20-second burst of automatic fire at a crowd of 1,000
unarmed people.
Reporter Chris Hughes said, We heard no warning to
disperse and saw no guns or knives among the Iraqis
whose religious and tribal leaders kept shouting
through loudhailers to remain peaceful. After the
shooting, those in the crowd still standing, now
apparently insane with angerran at the fortress
battering its walls with their fists. Many had tears
pouring down their faces. (1 May 2003, p. 4)
TURNING TO VIOLENCE
After two Bloody Sundays in three days, the people of
Fallujah turned decisively to violence. Khalaf Abed
Shebib, a tribal leader in Falluja, said a few days
later, People are ready to die in this battle. Two
days after 30 April massacre a local imam had had to
call off a demonstration after seeing protesters
stuffing hand grenades into their pockets.
Three teenagers were killed in the 28 April massacre.
They were students at the school. The headmaster of
Al-Kaat school told Phil Reeves calmly that he was
willing to die as a martyr to take his revenge
against the US troops. (Independent, 30 April 2003, p.
2)
Hend Majid, a 29-year-old housewife living opposite
the US-occupied school, told a Western reporter she
was glad Saddam Hussein was gone, but the US
occupation which had led to her neighbors deaths made
her feel like a Palestinian under Israeli rule.
Sitting in her living room where two bullets had
pierced the window and flown above the cot of her
7-day-old niece, she vowed to become a suicide bomber:
'I will strap explosives to my chest to get rid of
them.' (Iraqis Warn US Killings Will Breed Terror
Recruits, Reuters, 1 May 2003)
Everyone here was happy at first that the Americans
threw out Saddam, Ibrahim Hamad a retired soldier
said. But these killings will make all our children
go off with bin Laden. (Reuters, 1 May 2003)
ERASED FROM HISTORY
The 28 April massacre was soon being erased from
history. Reporting from Fallujah on a US operation on
16 June 2003, the Telegraph (p. 10), the Guardian (p.
10), and the FT (p. 6) all referred to recent attacks
on US soldiers in the town, and local hostility,
without mentioning the massacre.
THE NEED FOR REVENGE
Officially, US commanders in Baghdad attributed the
problems in Falluja to remnants of Saddam Husseins
Baath Party and his armed militia, Saddams Fedayeen.
Colonel Vaught, a local US officer, noted, There are
lots of Baathists, there are some Fedayeen around.
However, he appeared to agree with residents of
Falluja that there was a more complex picture of
accumulated grievances: disappointment with the U.S.
occupation, an avalanche of hardship and a lust for
revenge.
In some attacks, militants were stirring up religious
hostility. In other cases, hooliganism appears to be
at the root. In any event, they said, loyalty to
Hussein is far from the driving force here.
Riad, a lawyer who declined to provide his last name,
said that the killings of local people had prompted
relatives to plan revenge attacks against American
soldiers: This is our culture. Clans are strong here
and it is the duty to avenge a wrongful death. People
do not forget. (Washington Post, 4 June 2003, p.
A14.)
There were two problems: the fact that US forces
killed civilians recklessly; and the fact that they
killed with impunity. Many more such killings took
place in Fallujah, though on a smaller scale, and
similar incidents took place throughout what later
came to be known as the 'Sunni triangle'. (More
details are given in Milan Rai, Regime Unchanged,
2003)
The reaction among Iraqis was predictable. Why can
the U.S. Army come here, kill us, destroy our property
and we are not allowed to kill them? asked Yehia
al-Motashari, an auto mechanic and son of a tribal
leader in Samarra. We dont plan to surrender our
arms. With every passing day we have more guns.
We are hurting, said Jassim Mohammed Sultan, a
70-year-old laborer in Ramadi. You cannot blame us
for what we do.
THE FUTURE IS JIHAD
The future is jihad, said Sheik Mohammed Ali Abbas,
a cleric in Ramadi, 65 miles west of Baghdad. Do you
know of anyone who can accept this humiliation? Do you
just let them occupy your land while you sit and do
nothing? (Iraq Sunnis Seethe Over Loss of Prestige,
Associated Press, 6 June 2003.)
According to Sheikh Jamil Ibrahim Mohammed of
Fallujah, the attacks in they city were a simple
matter of a blood feud, revenge for the deaths caused
at the end April, and the lack of action by the US
military authorities: What can you do if a man sees
American troops kill his son, and then you see these
same men on our streets every day? Of course he will
seek revenge, especially if he sees there is no
justice from the Americans. (US troops fall foul of
honour and feuding, Times, 12 June 2003, p. 16)
There followed a string of attacks on US forces. The
younger generation was apparently proud of Fallujahs
violent resistance. A group of teenagers outside a
kebab restaurant said in early May, Of all of Iraq,
only Fallujah is resisting the Americans. The
Americans have these big tanks. We show everybody that
they are just toys. Lawyer Riad added, Im afraid
taking shots at Americans will become a sport for
these types. (Washington Post, 4 June 2003, p. A14)
A US army spokesperson in Baghdad admitted on 11 June
that it was not easy to pin down any one group for
responsibility for the attacks: It would be hard to
discount revenge. (Times, 12 June 2003, p. 16)
This is how Fallujah became the most dangerous place
in Iraq for US occupation forces.
This is how the 'Sunni triangle' became a hotbed of
insurgency.
The insurgency has evolved since April 2003, and
reports stress the growing Islamist leadership of much
of the Iraqi resistance. Nevertheless, it is clear
from the November 2004 crisis that massive violence is
not needed to deal with the insurgency - but US
restraint is.
The faster US-led troops return to barracks and then
to their home countries, the greater the possibility
that political violence in Iraq can be reduced.
JNV
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