Scribbled

Falluja II: Beyond the city limits

Via Prometheus 6, another reminder of what the Falluja offensive is failing to accomplish. Emphasis mine:

Beyond Embattled City, Rebels Operate Freely

Iraqi insurgents have extended their reach over large swaths of the country, including sections of the capital, making it unlikely that the United States can establish the stability needed for credible elections in January even if its forces succeed in Fallouja, military and political analysts say.

There is little doubt that American-led forces will recapture Fallouja within days, the analysts say. But U.S. officials who are planning for the election face another challenge: a law and order vacuum in many Sunni Muslim areas where there are no American or Iraqi forces and insurgents can operate with impunity.

Masked gunmen patrol these places, particularly at night, assassinating government officials, carrying out kidnappings and intimidating the people.

“There are large areas of countryside that are controlled 24 hours a day by the mujahedin, where people do not see U.S. forces,” said Charles Heyman, a senior defense analyst for the London-based Jane’s Defence Weekly.

With voting scheduled to take place in less than three months, there has been no let-up in insurgent attacks nor any sign that the government can curb them.

“You need to be able to replicate the density of troops now in Fallouja right across the Sunni Triangle, at least, and in Baghdad, and we don’t have enough soldiers to do that. And it’s hopeless to pretend Iraqis have the ability to do that,” Heyman said.

“Hopeless to pretend.” But don’t think the Bush adminstration won’t try. And in case you think Baghdad is secure, think again:

Mustafa Alani, chairman of Defense and Terrorism Studies at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, said that Baghdad was likely to be a chief target of the insurgency. It is the country’s nerve center, and with at least 6 million residents spread over a vast area, difficult for U.S. and Iraqi forces to stabilize.

“Baghdad is the real battlefield right now,” Alani said. “It’s the largest city, it’s impossible for the U.S. troops to control. They cannot really occupy Baghdad; they are spread too thin.”

The capital has become a prime site for one of the guerrillas’ most effective tactics: assassination. Often unrecorded in the daily violence is the frequency of attacks on low- and mid-level government workers. Allawi’s accountant and his son were shot to death two weeks ago; so was one of his secretaries. A deputy director general of the Oil Ministry was killed a week ago, along with a defense official.

Government workers are scrambling to apply for housing in the capital’s U.S.-controlled Green Zone to escape gunmen in their neighborhoods.

Don’t forget Samarra. And Mosul.

In Samarra, which the insurgents abandoned after intense battles with U.S. troops and Iraqi forces in early October, the guerrillas have begun to re-assert themselves. Two coordinated car bombs and several mortar attacks Saturday killed more than 30 people. This week insurgents killed a shop-owner suspected of spying for the U.S. His body, was left in the street as a warning to others.

In the north, Mosul, once trumpeted by the U.S. military as a model of stability, is now mostly controlled by insurgents. Two U.S. soldiers were killed there in mortar attacks this week. Insurgents killed four Turkish truckers Wednesday and guerrillas armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades clashed with American troops for several hours. They attacked two U.S. convoys, killing four people, a reporter on the scene said.

The true cost of The War That George Built will become more apparent, even to Americans, between now and the scheduled January elections.

© 2004 Philip Barron.  Log in  Monitored by SiteUptime