Wolf D. Fuhrig

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Fallujah Defying Foreign Invaders

Forty miles west of Baghdad, the city of Fallujah, home today to 350,000 mostly fundamentalist Sunnis with 200 mosques, has a history of fiercely resisting any interference by non-Arab outsiders.

After 400 years of Turkish occupation, the descendants of the ancient Babylonians in the river region of Tigris and Euphrates yearned to shape their own political destiny. But it was not to be. As soon as the Turkish rule ended in 1918, British colonialists--non-Muslim foreigners--could not resist their traditional temptation to impose their rule upon them and compel ethnic Arabs and ethnic Kurds, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims into one artificial state named Iraq.

It was in Fallujah where the first major uprising against the British overlords broke out. Led by Lt. Col. Gerald Leachman, a British army crushed the rebellion, but not before 10,000 Iraqis, 1,000 British troops, and Leachman himself had been killed.

Saddam Hussein, tribally related to the Fallujans, found among them strong support for his Ba'ath Party and in turn rewarded the city with several large industries. To the chagrin of the natives, one of Fallujah chemical production facilities was closed down by the United Nations Special Commission in the 1990s.

During the Gulf War, British bombs on Fallujah's bridge over the Euphrates missed and killed 200 civilians; and during last year's invasion, two American laser bombs missed, hit a crowded market, and took over 100 civilian lives. The Fallujans did not forget these attacks.

Nevertheless, the beginning of the American occupation saw little looting. Local leaders even elected a pro-American resident as mayor. When, however, the US Army decided not to remain outside Fallujah and establish a command post in the city's former Ba'ath Party headquarters, many residents defied the U.S.-imposed curfew, and in a clash with U.S. soldiers 15 civilians got killed.

The growing insurgency inside Fallujah climaxed last March 31 when four American contractors were dragged from their vehicles and Their dismembered remains were hanged from the girders of the bridge over the Euphrates while a large crowd cheered.

When Marines tried to regain control and began a siege of defiant Fallujah, 40 of them and at least 470 Iraqis were killed. In May the U.S. command announced a ceasefire but as soon as the fighting died down, the insurgents held a victory parade in ate na Fallujah while numerous terrorist attacks erupted in other parts of the country. Without the widespread clandestine support from tens of thousands of Iraqis in opposition to the occupation, the large scope and duration of the insurgency would be impossible. It apparently does not need a geographic base because it has recruits and arms caches throughout Iraq.

If nationwide elections are to be held next January 29, the U.S. command and the appointed Iraqi government can simply not tolerate the existence of uncontrolled rebel strongholds such as Fallujah. That is why on November 8 over 10,000 U.S. and 2,000 Iraqi troops launched a concentrated assault on the city with massive air strikes, artillery, armor, and infantry. It succeeded in reducing Fallujah to a largely ruined and empty shell. Yet, as could have been predicted, the insurgency immediately continued terrorist assaults in other locations.

Since the U.S. occupation began, some 100 Americans have died in Fallujah, more than in any other Iraqi city, except Baghdad. Iraqi casualties are estimated to have reached 100,000. Fallujah may be incapacitated for a while but the end of the insurgency is not in sight.

It makes no sense to most Arabs when President Bush and Condoleezza Rice tell them that the anti-American terrorists in the Mideast "hate freedom." Arabs have long been telling everybody who wants to listen that they do want be free--free first and foremost from foreign invaders and occupiers. When and how they will change their own societies and governments, that they consider their own business, not the business of foreigners.