The fierce fight at Fallujah

The Day:

There's no start to understanding the Fallujah of today without considering what happened here in November 2004.

That was the time of Phantom Fury, or Al Fajr, meaning “The Dawn” in Arabic.

In less than two weeks, Marines and other American forces crushed through the city, block by block, from the north on down, to take or kill any insurgents who'd dared not to evacuate Fallujah. Residents were at their peril if they did not leave.

An earlier push started months before, in April, shortly after the burned bodies of four private security workers with Blackwater USA were hanged from a bridge that leads west from Fallujah over the Euphrates River.

Pictures and stories of that day made headline news across the United States.

Today the Marines call the spot Blackwater Bridge.

The plan by Marines that spring two years ago was to do what ultimately was postponed until November.

When it happened, the effect was devastating.

Books have been written about it. Warfare academics study it.

Men here with Connecticut-based Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 25th Marines often mention “No True Glory,” by Bing West, a retired Marine who fought in the Vietnam War and wrote about the Fallujah invasion. More than one hardback copy floats around the building where Charlie stays.

In May, the head of the war studies department at England's Royal Military Academy Sandhurst came to Fallujah to interview Marines who were in the 2004 operation.

“It's the worst battle I've ever studied. Really ever, anywhere,” said Duncan Anderson, who is also a temporary adviser at Iraq's main military academy near Baghdad. He has been charged with helping to create the curricula.

“There are certainly bigger battles, and longer battles throughout history. But, in terms of intensity, nothing quite matches it,” he said.

From the time Marines were told to pull back from their April push into the city until November, insurgents built up their Fallujah forces. Although American military soon encircled the city, men who'd crossed the border from Syria and who came from places in and around the Sunni province of Al Anbar trickled in. They planted bombs in the streets, on poles, in houses, trying to make Fallujah one big booby-trap.

“They turned the city into a fortress,” Anderson said. “They were hoping the Americans would sit back and lob indirect fire. They weren't expecting the Americans to do what they did.”

The U.S. military ordered a total evacuation of Fallujah — called the City of Mosques and estimated to have once had a population as high as 350,000. The number of those who remained dropped down to about 60,000 by the middle of 2004, according to military estimates from Americans and British, and it fell much lower by the time November rolled around.

In less than two weeks from the launch of Phantom Fury, the Marines had taken over the city. Thousands of Iraqis were killed. Fewer than 60 Americans died in battle, Anderson said.

“The city had been converted into a killing ground,” he said. “They fortified the inside of their houses so Marines had to go into them. This was something more than the Japanese” in World War II. “The Japanese were willing to die. These guys wanted to die.”

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There is more to this well written story. I had an uncle who was in the Navy in World War II who fought against the Japenese. My grandmother one time was shocked to hear that he had actually killed some of them. His response was that the Japanese thought it was an honor to die for the Emperor and he was just honoring them. I am sure he had a smile on his face when he said it. When people mention the events at Haditha, they should be asked how many of the enemy in Fallujah wore a uniform.