Siege of Fallujah polarizing Iraqis

Even moderate Shiite leaders say the fighting in the Sunni triangle city has moved opinion decisively against the coalition.

By Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BAGHDAD – Few were happier than Ayatollah Imad al-Deen Awadi when Saddam Hussein was deposed. "This was a man so bad that people said they'd rather be ruled by Satan - the king of hell himself,'' says the cleric, who spent 10 years in Mr. Hussein's prisons.

But now Ayatollah Awadi worries that vicious fighting between US Marines and local insurgents in the Sunni triangle city of Fallujah is likely to spread across the country. "This is no longer about Fallujah," he says. "If they aren't ready for peace, it will spread and be just as hot in Ramadi, Abu Ghraib, the southern provinces, the whole country, really."

Indeed, Iraqi leaders and foreign analysts say the fighting in Fallujah, which has claimed around 700 Iraqi lives and has turned the muddled center of Iraqi public opinion - where people were ambivalent about the occupation but not actively opposed - decisively against the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority and its local allies.

"Fallujah has created a major polarization of Iraqi public opinion. There is no middle ground any more,'' says an adviser to the CPA. "Two weeks ago Iraqis wanted to see us make promises and deliver on them - rebuild, improve - but then they saw pictures of US bombs falling on a mosque in Fallujah. Now they want us out."

Haider Adil Al-Khafaji is a typical example of the hopeful Iraqis the US is losing amid the violence of April.

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