Fighting
is expected to continue for a few more days, but US commanders are
confident that Falluja will soon be under US control, paving the way
for the establishment of order necessary for nation-wide elections
currently scheduled for January 2005.
But will it? American military planners expected to
face thousands of Iraqi resistance fighters in the streets of Falluja,
not the hundreds they are currently fighting. They expected to roll up
the network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his foreign Islamic militants,
and yet to date have found no top-tier leaders from that organization.
As American forces surge into Falluja, Iraqi fighters are mounting
extensive attacks throughout the rest of Iraq.
Far from facing off in a decisive battle against the
resistance fighters, it seems the more Americans squeeze Falluja, the
more the violence explodes elsewhere. It is exercises in futility,
akin to squeezing jello. The more you try to get a grasp on the
problem, the more it slips through your fingers.
This
kind of war, while frustrating for the American soldiers and marines
who wage it, is exactly the struggle envisioned by the Iraqi
resistance. They know they cannot stand toe-to-toe with the world's
most powerful military and expect to win.
While the US military leadership struggles to get a
grip on a situation in Iraq that deteriorates each and every day, the
anti-US occupation fighters continue to execute a game plan that has
been in position since day one.
President Bush prematurely declared "mission
accomplished" back in May 2003. For Americans, this meant that major
combat operations in Iraq had come to an end, that we had won the war.
But for the Iraqis, it meant something else. In Iraq, there never was a
‘Missouri moment', where the government formally surrendered. The fact
is, Saddam Hussein's government never surrendered, and still is very
much in evidence in Iraq today in the form of the anti-US resistance.
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"It is a war the United States cannot win, and which the interim government of Iyad Allawi cannot survive" |
While
we in America were declaring victory, the government of Saddam was
planning its war. The first battles were fought in March and April
2003. Token resistance, no decisive engagement. The Iraqis fought
just enough to establish the principle of resistance, but not enough to
squander their resources.
Since May 2003, the resistance has grown in size and
sophistication. Some attribute this to the incompetence of the
post-war occupation policies of the United States. While this
certainly was a factor in facilitating the resistance, the fact remains
that what is occurring today in Iraq is part of a well-conceived plan
the goal of which is to restore the Baath Party back to power. And the
policies of the Bush administration are playing right into their hands.
The terror attacks carried out against the United
Nations and other international aid organizations succeeded in driving
out of Iraq the vestiges of foreign involvement the Bush administration
relied upon to present an international face to the US-led occupation.
In the chaos and anarchy that followed, the United States was compelled
to use more and more force in an attempt to restore order, creating a
Catch-22 situation where the more force we used, the more resistance we
generated, requiring more force in response.
The cycle of violence fed the resistance,
destabilizing huge areas of Iraq that are still outside the control of
the Iraqi government and US military. High profile operations in Najaf,
Sadr City and Sammara did little to bring these cities to bear.
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"While we in America were declaring victory, the government of Saddam was planning its war" |
Today, fighters
in Iraq operate freely, continuing their orgy of death and destruction
in order to attract the inevitable heavy-handed US response. Falluja is
a prime case in point. While the US is unlikely to deliver a fatal blow
to the Iraqi resistance, it is succeeding in levelling huge areas of
Falluja, recalling the Vietnam-era lament that we had to destroy the
village in order to save it.
The images from Falluja will only fuel the
anti-American sentiment in Iraq, enabling the anti-US fighters to
recruit ten new fighters for every newly-minted 'martyr' it loses in
the current battle against the Americans.
The battle for Falluja is supposed to be the proving
ground of the new Iraq Army. Instead, it may well prove to be a fatal
pill. The reality is there is no Iraqi Army. Of the tens of thousands
recruited into its ranks, there is today only one effective unit, the
36th Battalion.
This unit has fought side by side with the Americans
in Falluja, Najaf, and Samara. By all accounts, it has performed well.
But this unit can only prevail when it operates alongside overwhelming
American military support. Left to fend for itself, it would be
slaughtered by the resistance fighters. Worse, this unit which stands
as a symbol of the ideal for the new Iraqi Army is actually the
antithesis of what the new Iraqi Army should be.
While
the Bush administration has suppressed the formation of militia units
organized along ethnic and religious lines, the 36th Battalion should
be recognized for what it really is – a Kurdish militia, retained by
the US military because the rest of the Iraqi Army is unwilling or
unable to carry the fight to the Iraqi resistance fighters.
The battle for Falluja has exposed not only the
fallacy of the US military strategy towards confronting the resistance
in Iraq, but also the emptiness of the interim government of Iyad
Allawi, which is so far incapable of building anything that resembles a
viable Iraqi military capable of securing its position in Iraq void of
American military support.
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"The images from Falluja will only fuel the anti-American sentiment in Iraq" |
Falluja
is probably the beginning of a very long and bloody phase of the Iraq
war, one that pits an American military under orders from a rejuvenated
Bush administration to achieve victory at any cost against an Iraqi
resistance that is willing to allow Iraq to sink into a quagmire of
death and destruction in order to bog down and eventually expel the
American occupier.
It is a war the United States cannot win, and which
the government of Iyad Allawi cannot survive. Unfortunately, since
recent polls show that some 70% of the American people support the war
in Iraq, it is a war that will rage until the American domestic
political dynamic changes, and the tide of public opinion turns against
the war.
Tragically, this means many more years of conflict in
Iraq that will result in thousands more killed on both sides, and
incomprehensible suffering for the people of Iraq, and unpredictable
instability for the entire Middle East.
[Scott Ritter was a senior UN arms inspector in Iraq between 1991-1998. He is now an independent consultant.]