Fallujah: The aftermath
2004-12-07 11:59
Fallujah - The mangled cables and trash that litter the power station's control room do not bother Adil Raffah. But the bespectacled chief engineer begins to shake when he sees the desk he has worked behind for 25 years, now smashed.
"Only animals could do this, no Iraqi, never," he whispers, picking up a hammer left on the floor. "It must have been the Americans."
Ismail Kasim, the plant's senior adviser, tries to reassure him. "It's nothing, we can fix this in a few hours," he says.
To the US Marines combing Fallujah, the appearance of these two men is a positive sign: Perhaps they can play a small role in getting the shattered city up and running again.
Kasim is said to know the power grid in this part of Anbar province, which includes Fallujah, better than anyone.
But the two Iraqis may not be so willing to play the part.
Ruined homes
"I'm doing my job for my country and my family, not for the Americans," Kasim says. What hurts most, he adds, is that he still cannot go back into the city.
"I don't know what happened to my home," he says.
Kasim and Raffah are just two of the thousands of people who will begin trickling back into this devastated city after a massive US-led invasion, when at least 1 200 insurgents were killed (according to the US military) and more than 1 000 suspects were captured.
More than 50 US Marines and eight Iraqis were killed.
Three weeks later, Marines are still edgy - facing sporadic pockets of resistance and being highly suspicious of the few Fallujans who stayed behind.
Although the city has fallen, Marines fight scattered groups of rebels daily as they clear the city of weapons caches, more than 400 of which have been found.
Next year's election
At the same time, military engineers are racing to start reconstruction of the devastated city before the estimated 250 000 people who fled are allowed to return.
The work needs to be well under way by the end of January, when the country plans to hold national elections, if polling stations are to open.
Marine officers and Baghdad officials say they want all Fallujah's citizens to be able to return home to vote.
Once known as the "city of the mosques," Fallujah is now a landscape of flattened multi-storey buildings, ruined homes and broken minarets that testify to the overwhelming firepower the US military employed to retake the city.
In the battle's aftermath, US troops found evidence of "atrocity sites" - basements believed to have been torture chambers, complete with bloodied hoods, blood stains on walls and chains believed to have shackled hostages and prisoners held by the insurgents.
Slaughter houses
"When you go into those slaughter houses, you realise they were more followers of Hannibal Lecter than Allah," said Lt Col Dan Wilson. "What they were doing was an absolute perversion of the outstanding traditions of Islam."
The insurgents held Fallujans in a grip of fear, the Marines say.
"When you hear screams down the road, and you know torture is going on, you turn a blind eye," says Maj Jim West, a Marine intelligence officer.
"No one faults the citizens of Fallujah for not rising up against these evil thugs."
Across Fallujah, military engineers with tens of millions of dollars at their disposal are racing to fix the damage. They clear away piles of debris, pump sewage out of city streets and patch up damaged water towers.
Lt Col Michael Paulk says Fallujah's resettlement will be determined by Iraqi officials, with Marines supporting the future city council, to be appointed by Baghdad, and paying of claims to returning residents.
The security of the city will be gradually handed over to Iraqi battalions who took part in the November assault.
"Our plan is a phased transition to Iraqi forces," says Paulk. "It's a tall order for the Iraqis but... the Iraqi government has a vested interest in making Fallujah work."
Across town, in the eastern Askari neighbourhood, some 70 young men huddled in the yard of the Red Crescent, sister organisation to Geneva's Red Cross. The office was set up in late November to assist those civilians who stayed behind during the fighting.
"Of course I am angry, my house is destroyed, my city is in ruins, everything is gone," says Saad Mohammed Mansur, 23, one of the many young Sunni Arabs here who say they are students, left behind by their families to guard homes and property. They deny having anything to do with the Mujahedeen.
Marines search the youths and test them for gunpowder residue on fingers. Those who test positive are arrested; the rest can either stay at the Red Crescent, be escorted back to their homes or out of the city, says Capt Derek Wastila.
"Gunpowder residue is by no means an immediate recognition of guilt, but if they test positive, they get taken to a higher level of detention," says Wastila.
"Most of them have been very good, but unfortunately, one or two among them we know are likely insurgents."
The next day, the Red Crescent says the US military has ordered it to suspend operations temporarily. Its modest staff heads out, and American troops move in, arresting eight more of the young men inside.
Photo source: AP
- AP