Fallujah rejoices amid US pullback

FALLUJAH, Iraq — Covering their faces with checkered headscarves, militiamen loyal to a former Iraqi Army general jubilantly took to the streets of this battle-scarred city yesterday to celebrate what they called a triumph over withdrawing US Marines.

As the militiamen drove through Fallujah in trucks and congregated on deserted street corners, residents flashed V-for-victory signs and mosques broadcast celebratory messages proclaiming triumph over the Americans.

Although the militiamen were scheduled to take over checkpoints and patrol duties from Marine units Friday, many of those tasks appeared to go unfulfilled yesterday. Several of the militiamen, clad in street clothes and toting battered AK-47 rifles, said they still were waiting for orders from their commanders. But as they waited, many said their first priority was to rejoice.

‘‘We won,’’ said one of the militiamen, a former

soldier who gave his name only as Abu Abdullah.

‘‘We didn’t want the Americans to enter the city

and we succeeded.’’

A few miles away at the headquarters of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, Lieutenant General James Conway, the top Marine commander in Iraq, also praised the turn of events in Fallujah. He said that the new Iraqi force, which he authorized in an effort to quell insurgent activity, ‘‘marked the formation of a military partnership that has the potential to bring a lasting, durable climate of peace and stability.’’

Attacks against US soldiers and foreign contractors working for the occupation authority continued unabated following the bloodiest month for US forces since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq a year ago.

One US soldier and two contractors were killed in separate attacks near the northern city of Mosul, while another US soldier died of wounds sustained in a roadside bombing a day earlier. The military also announced yesterday that two sailors in Anbar Province in western Iraq were killed the day before in an attack. Sailors are sometimes used for logistics or hospital work.

In Washington, Bush said the United States would successfully pursue its work in Iraq in the face of a violent insurgency that seeks to undermine a peaceful transfer of power to Iraqis on June 30.

‘‘Despite many challenges, life for the Iraqi people is a world away from the cruelty and corruption of [Saddam Hussein’s] regime" and ‘‘we will finish our work,’’ Bush said in his weekly radio address.

Also yesterday, international condemnation of the coalition’s treatment of Iraqi prisoners intensified, as a British newspaper published new photographs believed to show a hooded inmate being beaten and humiliated by British troops.

A senior US military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Marine command was not alarmed by the gleeful reaction in Fallujah. Of more significance, the official said, is whether the militiamen will succeed in restoring security to a level sufficient enough for US troops to enter the city without being attacked.

‘‘If we can drive into town shoulder to shoulder with legitimate Iraqi authorities and we can go down and start delivering humanitarian aid . . . to a city that has been left in the cold for the last year, that’s our victory,’’ the official said. ‘‘Owning a rubbled city gets us nowhere.’’

In Baghdad, the chief spokesman for the US military command in Iraq, Army Brigadeer General Mark Kimmitt, told the Agence France-Presse news service that the US occupation authority and the Iraqi Defense Ministry had not endorsed the Iraqi general selected by Conway to lead the force in Fallujah. Kimmitt said Conway’s choice, Jassim Mohammed Saleh, a former major general, would have to undergo a full background check.

Saleh, who is originally from Fallujah but had been living in Baghdad, served as the commanding general of the Iraqi Army’s 38th Infantry Division before the US administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, dissolved the Iraqi Army almost a year ago. Earlier in his military career, Saleh served in the Republican Guard, an elite branch of the army used at times to suppress internal dissent by Hussein.

‘‘I would suspect that the First Marine Expeditionary Force doesn’t have access to all the background information on General Saleh or any of the other leadership’’ of the new force in Fallujah, Kimmitt told the AFP news agency. ‘‘It will be important for all of the leaders to go through a vetting and approval process conducted by the Ministry of Defense and the coalition.’’

Conway said his staff had already vetted the leaders of the new force, which the Marines are calling the First Battalion of the Fallujah Brigade. The senior military official said the Marines ‘‘ran their names though databases -- both military and nonmilitary services of the US government -- and nothing detrimental came up.’’

‘‘Most of these guys may not be squeaky clean, but they’re pretty clean,’’ Conway said.

Saleh’s force is supposed to grow to as many as 1,100 men by midweek. Conway said Saleh already had assembled 300 men and intended to double that figure by tomorrow. But members of the force said that only 160 participants had been selected -- all of them officers.

Several participants said other members would be chosen by the officers and would largely consist of people from the officers’ neighborhoods. It was not clear whether participants would be required to be former Iraqi Army soldiers, as Marine commanders have said. It also appeared unlikely that individual members would be screened by the Marine command, which only has the names of a half-dozen leaders of the force.

Conway acknowledged that some of the participants would be people who fought against his Marines over the past month. ‘‘We think that some of them were inside the city and prepared to defend the city,’’ he said.

But Conway said he would not allow in anyone with ‘‘blood on their hands,’’ nor would he ‘‘make any deals with hard-core elements inside the city,’’ including foreign fighters. He said the new force would pursue the foreign fighters.

‘‘They understand our view that these people must be killed or captured,’’ he said.

As they conduct those operations, Conway said members of the new force would have to abide by the same rules of engagement and laws of warfare used by US troops. But he also said the force would not need to obtain US approval to conduct missions. Instead, the general said, the force would operate in a way similar to military units from other nations, who have significant autonomy in their areas of responsibility and report directly to regional commanders such as Conway.

Inside Fallujah, however, members of the new force -- who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they said they were under orders not to talk to journalists -- expressed more desire to negotiate with the foreign fighters than to battle them.

‘‘The resistance will not fight us. They will not shoot at us,’’ said a former army colonel who stood next to seven other militiamen, their faces all shrouded in checkered scarves. Instead of confronting them, the former colonel said he expected many of the foreign fighters to leave Fallujah and conduct operations in other parts of Iraq. Military officials estimate that there are about 200 foreign fighters in the city.

The senior military official said the migration of foreign militants out of Fallujah was the top concern of Marine commanders.

The former colonel and other members of the new force said the key to restoring security in the city was not more raids or checkpoints but the exclusion of US forces. ‘‘If the American Army doesn’t enter the city, nobody will shoot at them,’’ the former colonel said.

But Conway said the pullback of Marine units from positions in the city did not mean Marines would avoid the city in the future. He said he planned -- as a test of the ability of the new forces -- to have Marines drive into the city in the coming days.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.