Reply #14: wiki on Fallujah [View All]

Fallujah (also Fallouja, Falluja, or Al Fallujah) is a city of some 285,000 inhabitants in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar (Umbar), forty miles west of Baghdad. Within Iraq, it is known as the "city of mosques" for the more than 200 mosques found in the city and surrounding villages. It has long been one of the most important places to Sunni Islam in the region.
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Fallujah was one of the most peaceful areas of the country just after the fall of Saddam. There was very little looting and the new mayor of the city — Taha Bidaywi, selected by local tribal leaders — was staunchly pro-US. When the US Army entered the town in April 2003, they located themselves at the vacated Ba'ath Party headquarters — an action that erased some goodwill, especially when many in the city had been hoping the US Army would stay outside of the relatively calm city.
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On the evening of April 28, 2003, a crowd of 200 people celebrating the birthday of Saddam Hussein defied the Coalition curfew and gathered outside a government building to protest against the US-led coalition forces who had entered the city.
During the protest, several gunmen within the crowd opened fire on the US troops. Fifteen Iraqi civilians died from US gunfire. There were no coalition casualties.
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Independent journalist Tara Sutton, in a report into atrocities notes that the killing of the American contractors happened in the context of a long-simmering exchange of hostilities, most notably by the shooting by American troops of seventeen Fallujah residents at an "anti-America" demonstration in April of 2003. "This was the context of the March 31 lynching. The impact of the images upon American public opinion was huge," Sutton said, while the previous history was ignored. <2> (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jun2004/fall-j02.shtml)
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In September 2004, US Marine commander Lt Gen James Conway criticised his military and civilian superiors over their handling of Fallujah: "We felt that we probably ought to let the situation settle before we appeared to be attacking out of revenge." He also criticised his superiors for "vacillating" after the offensive had started: "Once you commit you have to stay committed." <10> (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/14/wirq14.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/09/14/ixworld.html) Although it is not clear how high up the chain of command the decision was taken to attack Fallujah, a Newsweek report suggests that it was taken in the White House, with George Bush ordering "Let heads roll."
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In October, 2004 the U.S. military prepared for a major offensive against the rebel stronghold with stepped up daily aerial attacks using precision-guided munitions against alleged militant "safe houses," restaurants and meeting places in the city. Scores of residents, many of them reportedly civilian men, women and children, were killed by the intense bombing campaign according to hospital authorities. U.S. military spokesmen deny causing mass civilian casualties and claim that that only militants are targeted, although they admit that unavoidable "collateral damage" — death of innocent bystanders — occurred. City leaders continue to maintain that no insurgents occupy the city of Fallujah.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah