Marines will share patrols with Iraqis
FALLUJAH, Iraq -- As US officials grappled with whether to attack this insurgent stronghold, US and Iraqi negotiations announced yesterday that US Marines will start joint patrols with Iraqi police and civil defense forces in Fallujah on Tuesday morning.
Marines at Camp Fallujah, headquarters of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, were preparing for an as-yet-unannounced operation that they half-jokingly called ''the battle to end all battles in Fallujah," The previous night and early morning, Marines seemed to carry out a show of force, as mortars thundered from the US base here and the grinding sound of the guns of US AC-130 warplanes could be heard.
The New York Times reported today that President Bush and his senior advisers were meeting at the presidential retreat at Camp David to consider whether Fallujah should be attacked. An unnamed adviser was quoted as saying: ''It's clear you can't leave a few thousand insurgents there to terrorize the city and shoot at us. The question now is whether there is a way to go in with the most minimal casualties possible."
But the announcement of joint patrols in Fallujah seemed to rekindle hope for a peaceful solution to the two-week standoff here, although it was unclear how many Iraqis would take part, less than a month after Fallujah's police and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps units almost entirely collapsed as officers disappeared or openly joined insurgents.
The negotiators also outlined a stern new policy aimed at bolstering the patrols and winnowing out hard-core insurgents from local men who have been swept up in the fighting: Starting Tuesday, residents will be forbidden to carry weapons in the streets of the city that has been the epicenter of resistance to the US occupation.
Under current guidelines, Marines lack authority to arrest or shoot armed men unless they display ''hostile intent," such as pointing their weapons at troops.
After Tuesday, anyone carrying a weapon openly ''will be considered hostile and will be dealt with accordingly," Ambassador Richard Jones, the second-highest US civilian official in Iraq, said after the negotiations at the Marine base here.
US officials hope to avoid a bloody urban battle without letting leaders of the insurgency there -- whom they characterize as a mix of remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime and Islamic militants from Iraq and neighboring countries -- claim victory.
''There's nothing these foreign fighters would like better than to drag us into a building-to-building, block-to-block fight in Fallujah," Major General Joseph E. Weber, chief of staff for coalition forces and the top military representative to the negotiations, said at dinner in the base cafeteria after several hours of talks.
In the same dusty military compound, leading US commanders -- including General John Abizaid, who oversees US forces across the Middle East, and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of US forces in Iraq -- met with the top US administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III.
Outside, the base grew crowded with Humvees, armored vehicles, and Marines waiting to get haircuts and check their e-mail, as units poured in from around the region.
Marines have encircled Fallujah since April 4, when they were ordered to clear out insurgents there after the deaths of four US security contractors whose bodies were mutilated in the streets. A few days later, US forces halted their advance to allow negotiations.
Tens of thousands of residents have fled the city and sporadic firefights have continued.
Lieutenant General James T. Conway, the top Marine commander in Iraq, said Thursday that he did not think Fallujah's negotiators, including professionals and US-appointed city officials who acknowledge they do not control resistance fighters, had the clout to deliver a peaceful solution. He suggested that Marines could relaunch an all-out effort to take the city within days.
But yesterday, his chief of staff, Colonel John Coleman, said the negotiators now have ''a modicum of influence that they didn't have before."
US officials seem loath to restart a bloody fight in Fallujah and to face the political backlash it would bring from Iraqis.
Coleman compared charging into downtown Fallujah to a ''paint-by-numbers" approach, that is, simple and straightforward, but not likely to lead to the best result.
''I'm looking for the Rembrandt solution," he said. ''I don't have it yet. I'm still mixing colors and testing strokes."
In recent days, military officials here have begun a carefully calibrated shift in rhetoric: They acknowledge that not everyone fighting the occupation forces is a foreigner or Islamic extremist. And they are looking for ways to winnow out those groups from Iraqis caught up in the fighting out of anger or religious fervor but not deeply committed to it.
One way is through public relations: The Iraqi politician who organized the talks, Hajim al-Hassani, said yesterday that the Fallujah delegation plans an outreach campaign ''to educate the people about the importance of having peace in the city, security, and to abide by law."
Last night, the occupation authority announced $10 million to be spent on public works in Fallujah, with $25 million more on the way.
The joint police patrols seemed a riskier strategy, designed to put an Iraqi face on security. It is unclear whether Fallujah residents will be any more welcoming this week to police than in the past, when police have been routinely attacked.
That's one reason for the rule against carrying guns, said Jones, but another is to reassure Iraqis whose biggest concern is security.
He said he hoped the ban on carrying weapons would soon apply across Iraq, where nearly every family has a weapon. ''I don't care if they have them in their houses," he said. ''The problem is carrying them in the streets."
About 500 police and members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps have reported for duty in the past week, US officials said. About half the police are from Ramadi, the provincial capital and a traditional political rival of Fallujah's.
It's unclear whether the recruits have any experience, Coleman said. ''I didn't ask that question very hard. I just said, 'Bring people with good character.' "
Jones added, ''We'll see how many show up."
Anne Barnard can be reached at abarnard@globe.com.
