[Marxism] General claims Fallujah outcome has broken back of insurgency

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Iraq insurgency 'broken,' general says
Commander: Loss of Fallujah has scattered, disrupted rebels
IMAGE: U.S. MARINE PATROL IN FALLUJAH
Patrick Baz / AFP - Getty Images
A U.S. Marine Humvee passes a badly damaged building in Fallujah on
Thursday.
        
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 4:55 p.m. ET Nov. 18, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. offensive in Fallujah has "broken the back of
the insurgency" in Iraq, disrupting rebel operations across the country,
a senior U.S. commander said on Thursday.

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Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
at Fallujah, said the all-out assault on the city, which had been a
stronghold for Iraqi insurgents who rose up after last year's ouster of
President Saddam Hussein, had flushed the rebels out of their lair and
scattered them.

The comments by the top Marine commander in Iraq came as insurgents in
Mosul attacked the governor's office and amid bloodshed elsewhere in the
north, while U.S. forces and allied Iraqi government troops continued
house-to-house sweeps to find remaining insurgents in Fallujah.

"We feel right now that we have . broken the back of the insurgency and
we've taken away the safe haven," Sattler said in a briefing from
outside Fallujah monitored at the Pentagon.


Sattler, citing records captured from rebel positions inside Fallujah,
said insurgents had lost its "means for command and control" and "the
turf where you're operating, the town that you feel comfortable moving
about in, where you know your way about."

'Now you are scattered'
Speaking as if he were addressing the insurgents, he added, "Now you are
scattered. . You've been flushed from your hide-out. You have no friends
in the area you move into. You must make new contacts."

"Each and every time we can force these individuals to go to new
locations, expand their circle of friends - if you want to call it that
- to include some that they don't know and they don't trust, they'll
bring in rookies, more junior people that will, in fact, make mistakes,"
Sattler added.

"And that's why I mentioned that this has disrupted them, I believe - my
personal belief - across the country. This is going to make it very hard
for them to operate. And I'm hoping that we'll continue to breathe down
their neck," Sattler said.

Sattler said 51 U.S. troops had been killed in the offensive and 425
wounded. He said eight Iraqi government troops had been killed and 43
wounded. He said about 1,200 insurgents had been killed, and U.S. forces
hold about 1,025 prisoners.

Sattler spoke as U.S. troops continued to mop up pockets of resistance
in Fallujah, occasionally coming under heavy fire.

Other action
In other action Thursday:

    * U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested 104 suspected guerrillas in an
insurgent neighborhood in central Baghdad, including nine who are
believed to have fled Fallujah, Interior Ministry spokesman Sabah Khadim
said. Most were Iraqis, although Syrians and non-Iraqi Arabs were among
the group, he said.
    * Insurgents detonated a car bomb near a U.S. military convoy in
Baghdad and a roadside bomb exploded at a job recruiting center in the
northern city of Kirkuk in attacks that killed a total of four people
and wounded eight, police and officials said. Insurgents also fired 10
mortar rounds at the provincial administration offices in the northern
city of Mosul, wounding four of the governor's guards, authorities said.
    * Gov. Duraid Kashmoula was unhurt in the attack, spokesman Lt. Col.
Paul Hastings said. The rest of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, with
more than 1 million residents, remained calm for a second day since the
U.S.-led offensive operation began Tuesday to wrest control of the
western part of the city from insurgents.
    * The Iraqi government warned that Islamic clerics who incite
violence will be considered to be "participating in terrorism," and it
said a number of them already have been arrested. Thair al-Naqeeb, a
spokesman for Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, did not specify how many
clerics have been detained.

Assessment is more optimistic
Sattler's assessment of the impact of the offensive on Fallujah was
markedly more optimistic than those offered recently by other
commanders.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, the top U.S. military officer, last week
said it was "never our hope" that the offensive would end the
insurgency.

U.S. commanders previously have made pronouncements that turned out to
be premature about crippling the insurgency only to have the rebels
intensify their campaign of violence aimed at chasing U.S. and other
foreign troops from Iraq and undermining the American-backed interim
government.

Army Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno said on Jan. 22 that Iraq's insurgents
"have been brought to their knees" and reduced to "a fractured, sporadic
threat."

The timing of the latest assault was partly driven by the need to reduce
violence ahead of elections planned in January.

Relief organizations estimate up to 250,000 Iraqis have fled Fallujah to
nearby villages and Baghdad, but the groups have not been able to assess
the refugees' needs because of fighting around the former insurgent
bastion, a U.N. official said Thursday.

Astrid van Genderen Stort, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commission for
Refugees in Amman, Jordan, said Thursday that there didn't appear to be
an immediate threat of a lack of food because most of those who fled
either took supplies with them or are being fed by their hosts. But she
worried that the increased population may be overwhelming water and
sanitation facilities in some areas.

"We hope that we can access these people soon to know what the exact
needs are and to make sure that these needs are met," van Genderen Stort
said. "The access is very difficult. You just can't give the support you
would give in an ordinary refugee crisis."
 C 2004 MSNBC Interactive


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