« Previous · Home · Next »

Recording History Part IX - The war never really ended in Fallujah

By Richard S. Lowry

In the spring of 2003, the All Americans of the 82nd Airborne Division were given the mission of securing the wild-west town of Fallujah, thirty miles west of Baghdad. They never had enough combat power to clear the city of an increasing number of enemy fighters. On April 28, 2003 a protest within the city turned violent and 15 Iraqis were killed, further inflaming the population. The increasing violence throughout the summer and fall of 2003 prompted the American commanders to withdraw their forces to a series of camps outside the city. Fallujah became a safe haven and rallying point for hardened Saddam supporters, former Ba’ath party leaders, Republican Guard, Iraqi Army diehards and, finally, Islamic fundamentalists. LtGen Richard Natonski characterized the enemy in the city in a recent interview. “These were hardcore insurgents who wanted nothing more than to kill Americans.”

The lightly-armed paratroopers developed a ‘Fort Apache’ mentality – only venturing into the city in heavily armored groups. They had no idea how to deal with a civilian population that was heavily tied to centuries of local tribe and clan loyalties. The troopers were completely unprepared to deal with the people of Fallujah. If they had understood the people and their history, they might have made better headway.

Richard S. Lowry is the author of The Gulf War Chronicles and Marines in the Garden of Eden.

Fallujah is an ancient crossroads and Euphrates River crossing, connecting Saudi Arabia in the south with Syria and Turkey in the north. The main east-west road connects Baghdad with Amman, Jordan. Highway 10 is Iraq’s oldest and most important commercial artery, connecting Iraq to the western world.

Throughout recorded history, Fallujah has been contested. In the 18th Century B.C., Hammurabi expanded his Babylonian empire when he acquired the ancient city of Sippar (Sippar was roughly in the same geographic location as modern-day Fallujah). During the 1st Century AD, the Romans, Trojans, Arabs and Persians all fought at one time or another for control of what is now known as Fallujah. When the Mongol hordes laid waist to Baghdad in 1258, Iraq’s economy fell into ruin. Iraq’s civilization lay dormant for centuries, until the Iraqi people were conquered by the Ottomans in the 16th Century. Control over the Fertile Crescent flip-floped back and forth between the Ottomans and the Persians for hundreds of years until the Turks reasserted their rule in the early 1800s.

After the Ottoman Empire sided with the Prussians in World War I, England fought a series of battles with the Turks along the Euphrates River valley. With the Allied Victory, the British occupied what is now known as Iraq and in 1920 they faced continued resistance uncannily similar to what America experienced in the months following the 2003 invasion. Fallujah, the divided city, was one of the flashpoints. The British learned quickly that reconciliation was the key to success in this ancient land. “Fallujah had become the symbol of the resistance and had to become the symbol of the reconciliation process.” So, the British worked to woo the tribal and clan leaders. Fallujah soon became a model for the nation. As a symbol of national pride, the British selected Fallujah as the site for the coronation of the new, pro-British, leader, King Fiasal.

Throughout its turbulent history; daily life, business and government have all revolved around the families, clans and tribes of Anbar. These rugged people depend heavily upon one another to survive in an austere environment. Their ancestors learned that the only way to endure through the blistering summers, whimsical shifts in the Euphrates River, and even more whimsical changes in government, was by helping each other. There is no more loyal a people, yet they are radically independent and distrusting of outside interests. Fallujah has been run by clans and tribes for as long as can be remembered.

The largest tribe in the area is the Jumayla with their lands mainly to the east of the city. The Abu Issa tribe, in the south, had the largest population within the city. The western tribe, the Al Muhamadi competed with Abu Issa for control of Fallujah. However, the most prominent tribal leader was Sheik Abdullah Al Janabi. His tribe was the most hostile to the Americans and he was the self-proclaimed leader of the city’s governing Shura Council.

Because of its location, Fallujah has long been a hub of commerce and trade, both legal and illegal. The Euphrates River cuts a swath through the Iraqi wasteland bringing life-giving water to the Fertile Crescent. Vast barren plains lie to the north, east and west of the city. The river and roads are thoroughfares of trade.

With the ever-shifting political climate, the tribes and clans have had little regard for the artificial international boundaries. To the people of Anbar, smuggling is all in a day’s work. So, Fallujah is peppered with trucking industry businesses. Flatbeds and large trucks continually clogged the main road. Truck stops, machine shops and junkyards dominated the industrial area. If you needed a tire changed, a chassis welded or a new radio in your truck, Fallujahans stood ready to provide the service. Once the Americans arrived, the city had the talent and resources to turn to a new industry – the manufacture of IEDs and the smuggling of weapons.

The main thoroughfare contained a mixture of luxurious mansions, multi-storied concrete buildings, small shops and mud brick and concrete shanties – BMWs, donkey carts and long-haul trucks. More large mansions and estates lined the banks of the Euphrates River, west of the city on the fat peninsula known to Marines as the “Shark’s Fin.” Throughout the city, there were middle class and poor neighborhoods, mosques, open fields and areas which contained richly appointed homes.

Fallujah, like most Iraqi cities, was a city of cinder blocks. Nearly every building was surrounded by a wall. Some walls had been meticulously constructed, obviously the work of a mason who took pride in his work. Others were thrown together in a helter-skelter fashion and many had the look of the repetitive cycle of destruction, repair, more destruction and hasty re-assembly. Blocks were stacked upon blocks with no mortar, just waiting to be pushed over again. Most houses were small, one or two story buildings with concrete slab floors and thick roofs. Some compound walls sheltered large homes with landscaped courtyards, marble floors and ornate furnishings.

Fallujah’s homes were built to shelter their residents from the sweltering heat of the Iraqi summers and the continuous cycle of senseless violence. Concrete walls and roofs were sometimes three feet thick, with another three feet of dirt piled on the flat roofs. They were veritable bunkers. Most courtyard doors were made of sheet metal with two or three locks. Interior courtyard doors leading into homes were either metal or wooden. The wooden doors were usually protected by a locked metal gate. Fallujah could not have been more attractive to the resistance. The population was distrusting of outsiders and naturally rebellious. Its workers provided the where-with-all to smuggle weapons, explosives and foreign fighters, its craftsmen provided the talent to build bombs and every home was a fortress.

As 2003 turned to 2004, the cancer inside Fallujah was growing. Most Fallujahans were unemployed. The insurgents were able to launch attacks on nearby Baghdad and to control commercial traffic through the city. The city was home to gunrunners and smugglers. It seemed that every storefront had a back room full of weapons for sale. Everyone knew who specialized in particular items. Some sold machine guns while others provided sophisticated night vision devices. The local bazaars were crawling with merchants of death.

This is a continuing series, Catch up on previous posts here.

Richard S. Lowry is the author of The Gulf War Chronicles and Marines in the Garden of Eden.

TrackBack

Comments

Post a comment

Awards

Feedback

Military.com

Friends of OPFOR

Blogroll

Authors

Categories

Archives

Blogspot Archives

Search

Subscribe

Atom
RSS 2.0
RSS 2.0 Full Post





OPFOR for your PDA

Link to OpFor

Blogger Alliances

Data

Credits