November 22, 2008
Allawi ties Fallujah strike to peace talks
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned yesterday that he could be on the verge of ordering a military strike on the insurgent-controlled city of Fallujah if last-minute peace negotiations fail, as many American military officials expect.
"We have entered the final phase to solve the Fallujah problem," Allawi told reporters in Baghdad, on a day that saw the bombing of a hotel in Tikrit that killed 15 people. On Saturday, at least 30 people died in violence throughout the country, including eight Marines killed by a suicide car bomb near Fallujah.
There was also heavy fighting yesterday between Marines and insurgents in the city of Ramadi, which lies to the west of Fallujah.
With elections scheduled for January, the interim government and American-led military forces are keen to take control of the Sunni-dominated city of Fallujah and other militant-held towns in central Iraq, including Ramadi. Without the participation of the Sunni Arab minority, which held most positions of power during the regime of Saddam Hussein, elections would lack legitimacy and could be postponed.
Negotiations with Fallujah's nominal city elders have made almost no progress, much of the city's civilian population has fled and the American military on the outskirts of the city is preparing for what could be the bloodiest battle since the invasion in 2003.
"Of course I'm nervous," said one 19-year-old Marine, eating his dinner at a base near Fallujah last night. He then used an expletive to describe exactly how scared he was.
Senior U.S. officers here will not say when the offensive is likely to begin, noting that it is up to Allawi to make that decision.
If talks fail, Allawi said he would "have no choice but to secure a military solution... . I will do so with a heavy heart, for even with the most careful plan there will be some loss of innocent lives. But I owe, owe it to the Iraqi people to defend them from the violence and the terrorists and insurgents."
Fallujah has undergone a remarkable transition since the end of the ground invasion in April 2003. The town surrendered without a fight to the arriving Americans.
An incident late that month, however, sparked what would later develop into a full-scale resistance movement. Saying they had come under fire, American troops killed 17 demonstrators outside a schoolhouse.
That marked the beginning of a deterioration in relations between the American military and the residents of the city, many of whom are strictly religious and former officials in the Hussein regime.
In April this year, Marines besieged Fallujah after the particularly brutal killings of four U.S. security contractors but pulled out before they had taken control of the whole city. Many Marines consider that a fatal, and politically motivated, error that has emboldened the resistance, given insurgents months to prepare their defenses and necessitated a new offensive likely this month.
The American military believes Fallujah is the base for Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of a group called Al-Qaida in Iraq, which has claimed responsibility for several beheadings and suicide bombings. Yesterday the group said it had killed Japanese hostage Shosei Koda, 24, whose decapitated body was identified yesterday after being found in Baghdad, wrapped in an American flag.
The Iraqi government has demanded that Fallujah's leaders hand over al-Zarqawi, who has a $25-million price tag on his head, but Iraqi intelligence officials and American military officers consider such a handover extremely unlikely. They say they believe al-Zarqawi and his Islamist extremist group to be stronger than the more nationalistic insurgent element in the city.
In the past weeks, American military aircraft have repeatedly bombed buildings in Fallujah that they believe to be hideouts for al-Zarqawi and his followers. American officers at this base have told reporters in the past few days that they believe negotiations will fail and that an American-led assault on the city will be successful but potentially costly both to the U.S. forces and local civilians.
In Tikrit last night, an explosion hit a hotel, killing 15 Iraqis, police and hospital officials said.
Dr. Hassan al-Juburi, director of the Tikrit Teaching Hospital, said the blast happened at 8 p.m. at the Sunubar Hotel. Eight others were seriously wounded in the explosion, including two policemen.
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