Our Newest Iraqi Fallujah General Tells Us to Leave Iraq!!

glynch · May 6, 2004

We see a new phenomena happening. Many of the Iraqi leaders are trying to position themselves for democracy. With 81% of Shias and Sunnis wanting the US to leave, they are all trying to position themselves by supporting the populace who wants the US to withdraw.

Now we'll see if the neocons and Bush supporters really want democracy in Iraq. I doubt it. How about Bush who has been running around claiming "brown people" want democracy, too"?

Wll I think we can still count on our man Chalabi, the Iraqi American, to be in favor of our troops fighting the population who want us to leave, as he knows he is very unpopular with the Iraqis.
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FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - The Iraqi former general entrusted with pacifying volatile Falluja said on Thursday U.S. Marines must withdraw quickly from around the troubled town and go home so stability can be restored.

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"I want the American soldier to return to his camp. What I want more is that he returns to the United States," General Muhammad Latif told Reuters in an interview.

"They should leave very quickly, very quickly or there will be problems. If they stay it will hurt the confidence and we have built confidence. They should leave so that there will be more calm."

Latif and a group of generals offered to tame Falluja with their Falluja Brigade after the town was subject to a month-long siege in which hundreds of Iraqis died as U.S. air strikes and guerrilla mortars rocked the town.

Life has been calm over the last few days, but Marines are still on the edge of the Golan area of Falluja, where the heaviest fighting took place, manning checkpoints with Iraqi security forces under Latif's command.

Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marines Division, said on Thursday after meeting Latif the Marines would maintain a presence around Falluja until certain security requirements were met.

"At some point, I am sure we will pull back if the foreign fighters are confirmed and turned over to us, the heavy weapons are turned over to the Iraqi army and then we get them. It is event driven," he said.

But Latif said there was no need for them to stay because Falluja was peaceful.

"I am confident they will leave in a few days," he said.

Wearing a European-style suit and tie, Latif has been meeting top Marine commanders to discuss ways of imposing security in Iraq's most rebellious city.

On Thursday, he appeared with four other Iraqi former generals, pointing out that one of them was a Shi'ite, a suggestion that his force in mostly Sunni Falluja would be mixed.

TORTURED UNDER SADDAM

Latif denied reports he had worked for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service.

"I never worked for the Mukhabarat at all. Saddam threw me in jail the first day he came to power for a period of seven years. I had two hands broken by Saddam. My arm and shoulder were broken due to torture under Saddam," he said.

"I was innocent except for the fact that I stood against a dictatorship. When I served in the special forces I had some information on Saddam, his brother and family. They hated me very much."

Saddam is gone but Iraq's problems are multiplying and Latif faces the daunting task of taming a combustible mix of tribes, Islamic militants, guerrillas, suspected foreign fighters and fierce anti-American sentiment on the streets of Falluja.

Latif dismissed the possibility that guerrillas lying low after the fighting could return with their rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assalt rifles.

"There are no insurgents. There are kind people," said Latif, who said he studied in Britain.

The Americans have said repeatedly that foreign fighters played a big role in the violence. But that's another subject Latif brushes aside.

"We have underground mujahideen. I believe 37 corpses are buried in the graveyard. I saw it with my own eyes," he said.

Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited.

Sishir Chang · May 6, 2004

I'm beginning to get the feeling that the Iraqi insurgents are looking at Fallujah as a victory against us.

The Marines have pulled back, they have an Iraqi general and brigrade in charge of things who are showing little inclination to capture, turn in or disam any of the insurgents and is nowing saying he wants US forces out for good.

MacBeth · May 6, 2004

Originally posted by Sishir Chang
I'm beginning to get the feeling that the Iraqi insurgents are looking at Fallujah as a victory against us.
Click to expand...

Er...the rest of the world has been calling it that for a week. I said before, and repeat here, I can't believe how little play that got here. We drew a line in the sand, they corssed it, we said we were going to make an example of them, we said Fallujah would be our stand...and we couldn't do it. Didn't have enough forces, and initial resistance greater and more widespread than we anticipated. Candadian stations, the BBC, pretty much everywhere else, this was big news, a complete strategic defeat, and we hardly uttered a word about it in the States, merely talked about the transfer to an Iraqi general.

Woofer · May 6, 2004

The details behind the deal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6897-2004May6.html

In Fallujah
Deal Brings Old Uniforms Back in Style

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 7, 2004; Page A01

FALLUJAH, Iraq, May 6 -- The crackle of gunfire, omnipresent here just a week ago, has been replaced with the din of car horns. Shops that had been shuttered during a month-long siege by U.S. Marines, giving this city on the Euphrates River the feel of a ghost town, have begun to reopen. Attacks on the few remaining American troops in the surrounding desert have nearly ceased.

But the seeming normalcy has come with a cost. Fallujah is now caught in a time warp. Iraqi soldiers wearing their crisp, olive-green army uniforms -- a sight unseen since former president Saddam Hussein's government was toppled more than a year ago -- now man checkpoints on roads leading into the city. Stout generals, their lapels adorned with stars and crossed swords, stroll around the mayor's office with the same imperious air they projected when Hussein was president.

The Iraqi soldiers are back because of an agreement that is one of the most significant military gambles in the 13-month-long U.S. occupation of Iraq. Over the past week, U.S. Marines have pulled out of positions in and around Fallujah and handed over responsibility for security to an untested militia led by a group of generals who had been barred from military service by the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq.
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As of Thursday, leaders of the brigade said they had assembled more than 1,000 soldiers and would continue expanding the force. The troops have not yet begun patrols inside the city, but have been deployed along the outskirts, supposedly to prevent insurgents from entering or leaving.

But at Hamid's checkpoint, enforcement was a lax affair. His soldiers failed to stop a single vehicle during an hour-long visit.

"We're from this city," he said. "We know who is suspicious and who isn't."

Marine commanders said they intended to test the new brigade's success in combating the insurgency in a week or two, when they plan to send a convoy through the center of the city. "We're going to see whether anything has changed," one officer said. "If not, we'll just have to go back to where we were."

olliez · May 7, 2004

Huh ? Did Rummy & Bushy see this in the beginning of the invasion?

SamFisher · May 7, 2004

We've succeeded in uniting the fractious Iraqi people in their dislike for the US. Mission accomplished.

That's a good way to spend 200 billion dollars and kill 10,000 plus people, no?

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