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A New Chapter for Fallujah

By Slab

The Captain's Journal has a recent post on the pacification of Fallujah. Some argue that Fallujah is not truly pacified, because we have had to effectively close off the city and restrict the inhabitants' mobility to an extreme degree. Herschel, as cogently as ever, rebuts this:

I like to keep up with John Robb. Without studying analyses that run counter to your own one can become rather closed-minded. But what were the conditions like in Fallujah prior to this? I had interviewed Lt. Col. William Mullen concerning the conditions in Fallujah in this article: Operation Alljah and the Marines of 2nd Battalion, 6th Regiment.
And so I knew full well what we have had to do to pacify Fallujah. The tribal influence is much weaker in Fallujah, so more traditional counterinsurgency TTPs have been required, such as gated communities.

But is Robb seriously claiming that this has hindered true progress or otherwise caused conditions in Fallujah that are worse than they were prior to these actions? Is he seriously claiming that our efforts have caused unemployment or the lack of communication with the balance of Iraq?

He misses the point. The unemployment was already there, because it was the last major city in Anbar to undergo pacification. I claim exactly the opposite of Robb. Now … and only now … can Fallujah BEGIN its communication with the rest of Iraq.

Herschel has pointed out numerous times that we can not truly begin to provide services to the Iraqis until we take care of their most basic need: security. All of the measures that John Robb questions were taken to provide that basic need, so that we can begin to stimulate the economy in Fallujah. Obviously, Regimental Combat Team-6 and the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Iraqi Army Division feel that the security situation is much improved.

Iraqi Army Withdraws from Fallujah

The last battalion of Iraqi soldiers with 2nd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division, withdrew from the Anbar Province city of Fallujah, Sept. 1, leaving the city’s security and stability in the hands of the local police and government.
Brig. Gen. Ali al-Hashemi, the brigade’s commander, said the time had come when Iraqi Police alone could handle law enforcement in the city.

“I am very confident in the IPs keeping the city safe. Besides, it is their job to work to keep the city safe,” al-Hashemi said through an interpreter. “It’s not the IA’s job. The army should not be inside the city. The police should be in the city.”

I, for one, truly hope that Fallujans have finally turned a corner in this war that has been so hard on their city. To the jundi of 3-2-1 IA, and all of the Marines who have fought so hard, a heartfelt Bravo Zulu.

September 5, 2007 02:56 AM News From Iraq ~ The Long War