Iraqi Troops Lacking
A U.N. Security Council resolution gives the U.S. military the freedom to conduct military operations as it sees fit in Iraq. But American commanders and diplomats in Baghdad have said they would not mount a major operation in Fallujah without the consent of Iraq's interim government. Senior Iraqi officials said it was highly unlikely that they would endorse military action that did not include a large contingent of Iraqi forces.
But it could take until the end of the year for enough Iraqi forces to be trained and equipped for a full-scale assault on Fallujah. There are only six Iraqi army battalions in service, each with about 700 soldiers, three of which are deployed in Najaf. Six more battalions are supposed to be trained by the end of October. By the end of January, U.S. officials hope to have 27 trained and deployed Iraqi battalions.
A senior U.S. military commander in Baghdad said there would not be enough Iraqi troops available between now and the end of October. "We're in kind of a window of vulnerability . . . because we don't have the capacity to do the things we know we need to do," he said.
The senior commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Fallujah and the city of Samarra, an enclave 65 miles north of Baghdad where U.S. forces have avoided a decisive battle with insurgents, did not have to be pacified before national elections could be held in January. More important to quell, he said, were insurgencies in provincial capitals, such as Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of the capital, and Ramadi, 60 miles to the west of Baghdad.
"Candidly, Fallujah and Samarra don't necessarily make the list," the senior commander said. "They're not provincial capitals. They're not major cultural centers."
While the U.S. military intends to intensify a joint campaign with Iraqi forces to attack insurgents by the end of the year, the effort likely will initially focus on small cities, the commander said. "Do you go right to Fallujah?" he said. "It's a big chunk to bite off. Can you isolate it and let it fester for a while?"
Some Marine officers in Fallujah contend that waiting for Iraqi forces to get trained will give the insurgents time to recruit new members, harden their defenses and plot new attacks. Among the insurgent ringleaders believed to be in or near Fallujah is Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born organizer of a string of car bombings, kidnappings and other attacks on U.S. and Iraqi security forces. He is one of the U.S. military's most-wanted men in Iraq.
"We need to take out that rat's nest," said one senior Marine officer in Fallujah, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his views contradict those of his commanders. "The longer we wait, the stronger they get."
That view is shared by a small cadre of Fallujah residents eager to end the hostilities and open the city to U.S.-funded reconstruction projects. "If they invade Fallujah now, it will be better," said Khamis Hassnawi, the city's senior tribal leader. "Every day that passes, the resistance increases. Their numbers increase. Their power increases."
Although the main road from Fallujah to Baghdad is blocked off by Marines, every other route into the city is open, allowing insurgents free passage to other parts of western Iraq and Baghdad. On most days, there are no checkpoints to search cars leaving Fallujah, where U.S. intelligence officials believe many car bombs are assembled.
U.S. military officers said that placing the city in a vise could lead Zarqawi's followers and other foreign fighters to flee to other parts of Iraq, making it harder to track their movements. The officers said that in the current situation, with insurgents remaining in the city, the military could rely on informants, reconnaissance drones and spy satellites to target them with airstrikes, which have occurred with increasing frequency.
"Zarqawi has massed his folks there and he is presenting targets for us on a regular basis," the senior military official in Baghdad said. "It's a heck of a lot easier to target the Zarqawi network when we see groups of 15 or 20 having a meeting in Fallujah than it is when we see three- to four-man cells spread out all over Iraq."
Conflicting Casualty Counts
Col. John Coleman, the chief of staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, estimated that hundreds of insurgents had been killed in airstrikes over the past several weeks in Fallujah.
Since Thursday, U.S. forces have conducted four airstrikes on what have been described as targets associated with Zarqawi's network in and around the city. Among them was a housing compound in an agricultural area about 15 miles south of Fallujah where the U.S. military said as many as 90 foreign fighters were meeting. The military said the strike, which occurred on Thursday evening, killed about 60 foreign fighters.
