No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah

by Bing West

  Given the JTF order, the regiment intended to attack block by block, demolishing strong points, blowing up arms caches, and killing all who stood and fought. To aid in the fight, Mattis had ordered a third battalion, 3/4, to pull out of a city to the north and report to Toolan. Battalion 3/4 was a seasoned combat unit; most of the officers and over 60 percent of the troops had fought together a year earlier. It was 3/4 that had hauled down Saddam’s statue in Firdos Square, signaling the fall of Baghdad.

  On April 8, while 3/4 was moving into position to the east, Battalion 1/5 was receiving fire from the Al Samarri Mosque, north of Highway 10. Lieutenant Josh Glover led a platoon to the mosque’s gate, blew the lock, and charged in. The insurgents fled out the back, leaving behind three hundred RPGs and 122mm rocket rounds, as well as suicide vests.

  As they cleared through the junkyards, the Marines advanced cautiously. Thousands of civilians were fleeing through their lines; insurgents sometimes hid behind groups of women and children. The door of a car or taxi amid hundreds of slowly moving vehicles would open and ammunition would be dropped off. Eventually the residents were allowed to leave only on foot, as concern about suicide bombers increased with the amount of explosives discovered.

  _____

  In Battalion 2/1’s zone, in the northwestern corner above the Jolan District, civilians weren’t a problem; they had all fled the houses and apartments. The insurgents fired rockets and mortars that fell with no particular pattern or time interval. Like 1/5, Battalion 2/1 absorbed successive assaults by small gangs on April 7 and 8. Three or four times a day, a dozen or so insurgents would run forward; some would be cut down, and others would retreat. Whenever the insurgents persisted in firing from a particular building, the Marines called in fixed-wing bomb strikes and Cobra rocket attacks.

  On the afternoon of April 8, Col Toolan visited Echo Company of 2/1, which was holding a line of buildings along the edge of a cemetery. In his usual state of high energy, Capt Zembiec let it be known that he favored a tank-supported assault into the Jolan. Toolan counseled patience. Battalion 3/4, he told Zembiec, was setting into position to the east. He wanted to catch the insurgents in a net and finish them, not let them scatter out of the way of a single-axis attack and regroup later.

  By the evening of the eighth, Toolan was set to take back the streets of Fallujah. He told MajGen Mattis all he needed was the go-ahead signal. Mattis estimated it would take forty-eight to seventy-two hours to finish the fight.

  _____

  It would be an American rather than an Iraqi force, though. The 36th Iraqi National Guard Battalion, with its four hundred men and seventeen U.S. special forces advisers, was on the lines with 2/1 and fighting well. But it was showing signs of fraying at the edges and couldn’t continue much longer as a frontline unit. The JTF had found no other reliable Iraqi force to join the attack. In the past several days a wave of Iraqi desertions and no-shows had swept throughout central and southern Iraq. In Baghdad, as MajGen Dempsey aligned his 1st Armored Division against Sadr’s militia, he ruefully watched Iraqi police and National Guard units that he had nurtured for months abandon their posts. To the Shiite south, the Coalition’s Multinational Division, comprised of Poles, Bulgarians, and the like, offered scant resistance to Sadr’s bands of thugs, while the Iraqi police and National Guard melted away. In the rebellious Sunni Anbar Province, to the west, the Marine Expeditionary Force staff was ticking off the desertions of one Iraqi unit after another. Over 80 percent of the police and National Guard had deserted.

  General Abizaid later concluded that the problem lay in the lack of a functioning Iraqi chain of command. The separate Iraqi forces—police in one city, a National Guard battalion in another—had no organizational structure or set of higher allegiances. If the battalion commander folded, as happened in the case of the 2nd Battalion, or if a police chief felt he was overmatched and left his police station, his men followed. By running away, the police and National Guardsmen had saved their own lives. No higher chain of command had intervened, and no senior officers rushed to the scene to take over or to impose discipline for desertion in combat. While three- and four-star American generals regularly visited their troops on the front lines, Iraqi senior officers did not have that leadership tradition.

  The insurgents, too, lacked a command structure and possessed only basic arms. Yet they fought enthusiastically against the Americans and routed the Iraqi security forces. Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya provided a scorecard as they reported heroic resistance spreading from Fallujah to Ramadi to Quaim, Hilla, Karbala, and Najaf. Not a single member of the Iraqi Governing Council, ensconced in Baghdad, left the capital to rally the Iraqi security forces or to urge a single unit to fight back. In city after city the insurgents held the streets.

  _____

  In Baghdad Ambassadors Bremer and Blackwill were fending off a torrent of complaints. Just as President Bush had reacted a week earlier to the images of the mutilated bodies of four American contractors, so too were Iraqis reacting viscerally to the images from Fallujah. After two more members of the Iraqi Governing Council quit and five others threatened to follow suit, Bremer agreed to an evening meeting on the eighth. Attending were three members of the council. Sheikh Ghazi Yawar represented the old, established power base of Sunni sheikhs. Hachim Hassani led a Sunni group called the Iraqi Islamic Party. Energetic and smooth, Hassani had lived for sixteen years in California and had embraced Fallujah as his special cause. The third member was eighty-year-old Adnan Pachachi, a polished former diplomat and a favorite of the State Department. Like the other two, Pachachi was railing about Fallujah, holding daily press conferences to denounce “an act of vengeance” and going on Arabiya television to complain that “it was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah. We consider these operations unacceptable and illegal.”

  Generals Abizaid and Sanchez agreed to participate in the evening meeting. Sanchez called Conway to warn him there might be a delay before “the big push.”

  Conway was not happy. “We control thirty percent of that city,” he told Sanchez. “The ACF [anti-Coalition forces] are short of ammo. We have a battalion tearing up their ammo dumps in the industrial sector. This isn’t the time to stop. We need just a few days to finish this. That’s all—days.”

  The senior diplomats in Baghdad, where CPA relations with the JTF were frayed, had been shown no written ops plans or estimates of the time it would take to seize Fallujah. Based on verbal discussions, they were under the impression that the Marines needed a week to ten more days—a timeframe fraught with political risk.

  The CPA diplomats who were in the field agreed with the Marines that the fight should continue. Nate Jensen, a CPA diplomat, was talking with Toolan in regimental headquarters next door to the MEF when they heard that Baghdad might stop the attack. He called Stu Jones, an experienced foreign service officer, at Camp Blue Diamond, and Jones sent an immediate message to Bremer, arguing that a delay would strengthen the insurgents and accomplish no useful purpose. Ambassador Michael Gfoeller, the senior adviser in the province to the south of Anbar, sent a forceful dissenting message to Bremer, stating that any delay would be seen as weakness by the Sunni insurgents and would encourage Sadr in his rebellion as well.

  Sanchez and Abizaid attended the evening meeting at Bremer’s office. The interim Iraqi defense minister, who favored continuing the attack, was not there. The three Sunni Iraqis from the Governing Council presented a powerful case against the attack, warning of massive street protests and mass resignations. The director of the Fallujah hospital had reported on Al Jazeera that six hundred civilians had died and a thousand had been seriously wounded. The Iraqi officials were passionate and convincing. Hassani showed that he was a skilled debater, deflecting Abizaid’s requests for several days to finish the fight. Hassani retorted that soon Iraq would be one big Fallujah.

  Threatened resignations might be a bluff, but Fallujah did provide a means for the appointed Sunni officials to gain popular legitimacy. The
IGC, heavily comprised of expatriates who had returned after Saddam was toppled, had gained only shallow support among their fellow Iraqis. Now the appointed leadership of the fledgling Iraqi democracy was rushing to the rescue of insurgents dedicated to killing them.

  Abizaid agreed with Bremer that the attack on Fallujah was jeopardizing the political stability of Iraq. At the conclusion of the meeting, Abizaid ordered the Marines to suspend offensive operations. “I know major military action could implode the political situation,” he said, according to one official quoted in the Los Angeles Times.

  Sanchez informed Conway of Abizaid’s decision, stressing that the threats of the Iraqi Governing Council to resign could not be ignored. Conway had a different perspective: “Once in, we’re committed,” he said. “Stand by it.”

  The halt would be temporary, Sanchez assured Conway. The purpose was to bring medical supplies to Fallujah’s two hospitals and to permit a delegation from the Governing Council to talk with the city elders. What that was intended to accomplish was not clear. Conway relayed the news to Mattis, who discussed it with Col Dunford. Mattis reacted by quoting Napoleon.

  “First we’re ordered in, and now we’re ordered out,” Mattis said. “If you’re going to take Vienna, then by God, sir, take it.”

  _____

  On April 9 the American press was focused on analyzing the testimony of Dr. Condoleezza Rice before the 9/11 Commission. The hearing had provided high drama, with Rice calmly refuting allegations of past administration failures and refusing to be baited into making any impolitic statements or showing any anger. The CPA announcement that U.S. forces in Fallujah “had initiated a unilateral suspension of offensive operations” received little play.

  Sanchez met with reporters to stress that JTF resolve had not weakened. “We have got Fallujah under siege at this point,” he said, “and we will continue our deliberate operations in the city until we’ve accomplished our objectives.”

  To assuage the glum Marines, Gen Abizaid visited Camp Fallujah. The MEF staff began the meeting with a briefing on Marine forces in contact. The thrust of the briefing was clear: the Marines were engaged while the politicians were talking about cease-fires. The briefing ended with the statement that the battalions were ready to continue the attack. Abizaid said the plan was to cease pushing forward for twenty-four hours and then assess. He said the insurgents inside the city thought they had beaten first the army (the 82nd) and now the Marines. They would make exaggerated claims to the press that should be ignored. Arabs had done that before, as in the 1967 war against Israel, when they declared victory knowing they had been defeated.

  “But we haven’t defeated them in Fallujah,” a Marine observed.

  “We’re dealing with the nastiest people here,” Conway said, making it clear he believed the attack should continue.

  “The IGC has threatened to resign,” Abizaid replied. “That would be a terrible optic. We need time to get it politically right.”

  Mattis arrived late to the meeting. His small command convoy was racing down the highway from Ramadi when two Humvees flagged them down. On patrol from Battalion 3/11, the Marines had been hit by machine-gun fire from a house about four-hundred meters to the north. Not wanting to leave the ambushers in place, Mattis added the firepower of his two LAVs to the patrol from 3/11.

  “The general flanked the hajis from the south,” his crew chief, Gunnery Sergeant David Beall, said. “He sent me in on the north flank. We caught them in a crossfire. Then the general called in two Cobras and that ended it. We pulled out two or three dead Iraqis and one machine gun and took off down the road. He was running real late.”

  When Mattis arrived at the MEF, he apologized for his delay.

  “I was late getting here, General,” he said, “but give us twenty minutes and we’ll be ready to jump off.”

  Battalion 3/4 was closing on the cloverleaf east of the city. Mattis was ready to squeeze the city from the east, south, and west.

  “No,” Abizaid said. “Not for at least twenty-four hours. Then we’ll reassess.”

  The four-star general flew out, leaving behind a group of smoldering Marines. When Mattis returned to his LAV, he said nothing to his crew or to the few embedded reporters who had been with the division for a month. This was highly unusual. It was his habit to explain to them what he had been doing in a meeting, make a few tactical observations, and take questions. The crew always gathered around. They were family and liked knowing what their leader was thinking. On the ninth, though, Mattis kept his distance. He was the general, keeping counsel only with himself.

  The next day, April 10, the written order from the JTF to halt offensive operations reached Toolan’s regiment. Offensive operations were suspended, but deliberate operations could continue, meaning that the Marines could move forward reasonable distances to strengthen defensive positions. Sanchez was trying to give them as much maneuver space as possible.

  In the States, President Bush delivered his weekly Saturday radio talk to the nation. “In Fallujah, Marines of Operation Vigilant Resolve are taking control of the city, block by block,” he said. “Our offensive will continue in the weeks ahead.”

  The Marine commanders tried to understand the contradictory verbal and written orders they were receiving. How an offensive could take control of the city block by block when it had been ordered to halt was mystifying. As far as they could understand it, Sanchez believed the pause would continue for only a day. After that pause, the offensive could resume, as the president indicated on the radio. They cherished the hope that it would.

  There hadn’t been a mutual cease-fire on April 9. The insurgents had opened fire whenever they had the advantage. Battalion 3/4 had taken mortar and rocket fire all night and on the morning of the tenth had edged into the first set of buildings on the northeastern side of Fallujah, while Battalions 2/1 and 1/5 remained in place. The Iraqi officials Hassani and Yawar—drove in from Baghdad, met with some Iraqis at the Government Center, and later held a press conference at the MEF headquarters outside the city. They told the press that the city was “devastated” and that the doctors who had accompanied them were “aghast” at the conditions.

  “We want to put the good people of Fallujah in control of their city,” said Saif Rahman, a member of the negotiating team from the Governing Council.

  The officials then hastily left for Baghdad, where council member Adnan Pachachi went on Arab and American television to deliver the lines he would repeat for the next two weeks.

  “We consider the action carried out by U.S. forces as illegal and totally unacceptable,” he said. “It is a form of mass punishment.”

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  MANY DIE, THEY ARE GONE

  WHILE NEGOTIATIONS AND POSTURING ENSUED AT Fallujah, thirty miles to the west in Ramadi fighting raged for several days. On April 6, twelve Marines died battling the insurgents across the city and in the suburbs. The fighting had continued the next day, when the brigade staff ordered a psychological operations team into the city. On top of their Humvees the psyops crew had loudspeakers instead of machine guns, so LtCol Kennedy told Weapons Company to provide cover for the mission.

  Linking up with the two psyops Humvees, a platoon commanded by First Lieutenant Lucas Wells walked slowly into the marketplace, with the speakers blaring in singsong Arabic, “Thank you for pointing out the insurgents. Do not let them cause you fear.” The Marines walked on both sides of the vehicles as hundreds of incredulous Iraqi men gathered about, hooting and shouting insults and making slicing gestures across their throats, showing the soles of their flip-flops and saluting with their middle fingers. Nearby minarets blared an appeal for blood for the jihad, drowning out the psyops message. The Marines handed out pamphlets that the Iraqis ripped up or rubbed across their asses and flung back. A few stones were thrown, then a few more. The Marines, as angry as the jeering mob, swung their rifles back and forth, daring someone to challenge them.

  “This is not a succes
s,” 1/Lt Wells radioed back to Capt Weiler.

  “Okay, go north a click,” Weiler said. “That way it doesn’t look like we’re being run out of town. Let some cows hear the message, then come home.”

  Walking north, the Marines bumped into a procession of unarmed men, many in white dishdashas, carrying a wooden coffin. The Marines stood to the side to let them pass. Hard stares were exchanged, neither side saying a word. When they reached the open stretch of road where the Head Hunter sniper team had fought on April 6, they knew they were in for it. No one was outside, and most of the livestock had been herded into the walled courtyards. They scanned the open fields, the pine trees, and the set-back houses, waiting for the attack. As usual, it began with scattered RPG rockets and AK and machine-gun fire, followed by an IED detonated too far away to do damage.

  Wells called for a skirmish line to advance on the nearest large house, where they found only a frightened woman and three children hiding on the roof. In a nearby palm grove, a Marine saw movement at the top of a tree and let loose a burst from his Mark 19. Two men with AKs fell twenty feet to the ground. In the shrubs the Marines captured two other Iraqis wearing tree-climbing harnesses. As he walked back to the waiting Humvees, Lance Corporal Marshall Cummings was shot in the back, the bullet puncturing his lung. A man knelt up in the tall grass to see if he had hit anyone. The Marines put several Mark 19 slugs into his chest, placed Cummings in a Humvee, and drove back to base at breakneck speed through the thick downtown traffic, bumping cars out of the way. At the base Dr. Son stabilized Cummings, and a Blackhawk evacuated him.

  Kennedy didn’t like concentrating patrols on the inner city; it left the initiative in the suburbs with the insurgents. In the attack on April 6, the core of the insurgents had come from outside the city. Historically, insurgents hid in the countryside and squeezed the government forces that were holding the cities. The flat land of Iraq provided no jungles or forests to hide in. Instead, the excellent road system enabled insurgents to live in safe areas, hide caches of arms inside a city, drive to assembly points, pick up the weapons, attack, and drive away. Sofia was the assembly area for the attacks inside Ramadi.