U.S. talking to Falluja leaders to get rebels to disarm
Direct talks between the United States and leaders of the besieged city of Fallujah produced their first concrete results: an appeal for insurgents to turn in their mortars, surface-to-air missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and other heavy weapons, U.S. officials announced Monday.
In return, the U.S. military said it does not intend to resume its offensive in the Sunni Muslim stronghold so long as militants are disarming.
But with Marines encircling Fallujah and holding their positions inside the city, commanders warned that if the deal falls through, they could launch an all-out assault, which would likely mean a resumption of bloody urban combat.
"There is also a very clear understanding ... that should this agreement not go through, Marines forces are more than prepared to carry through with military operations," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad.
He said the Marines were poised to take the city "in a very short order."
[Semper Fi!...and Hooah! Don't forget the Army's there, too!--Jen]
[...]
Najaf is part of an area in south-central Iraq patrolled by 9,500 peacekeepers from 23 countries including Spain.
On Monday, President Bush scolded Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for his decision to withdraw Madrid's 1,300 troops from Iraq, and told him to avoid actions that give "false comfort to terrorists or enemies of freedom in Iraq."
[President Bush is right: when the Spanish pull out from the front lines of Najaf which they threaten to do very soon, it will appear to the enemy there as if they are winning at a very strategic time. Get ready when that happens; we could see a new assault from the bad guys then.--Jen]
Kimmitt said there would be no power vacuum as Spanish troops pull out of Najaf. He said officials had been discussing how to replace the troops since Zapatero won Spanish parliamentary elections in March after terror attacks in Madrid.
[...]
But gunfire in the city [Falluja] has nearly ended since the two days of direct negotiations began Friday, and a curfew was pushed back to start at 9 p.m. rather than 7 p.m. Small numbers of armed and uniformed Iraqi police and civil defense members were seen on Fallujah's streets Monday for the first time since the Marine siege began on April 5.
Some residents emerged from their homes, and Americans blared loudspeakers on trucks urging food stores to open.
"There seems to be a serious attempt by the people of Fallujah to get their house in order," said Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Marine Battalion, 5th Regiment on the city's southern side.
[...]
The 2,500 U.S. soldiers who were deployed outside Najaf to capture or kill al-Sadr began a troop rotation that will reduce their numbers by about 500. Their commander, Pittard, said there were no plans for the time being to make a move against al-Sadr in the holy city - a move moderate Shiite clerics warn would spark an explosion of outrage.
[...]
The Fallujah statement was far from a lifting [of] the Marine siege, and U.S. officials did not lay out terms by which they would do so. Instead, the document read more like an outline of steps that must be taken to ward off a resumed U.S. assault. Even the U.S. commitment not to attack was phrased as an "intent" not a promise.
"Progress must be clearly demonstrated and the return to law and order observed. Time to settle this crisis peacefully remains extremely limited," the statement said.
It said joint U.S.-Iraq patrols must resume, police and Iraq security forces should resume their posts, and they must "move to eliminate remaining foreign fighters."
[...]
In the statement, the Americans agreed to allow better access to hospitals and graveyards and ease the movement of "official ambulances" throughout checkpoints. Marines have said gunmen have been using ambulances to move.
[This is IslamoNazi SOP now; the "Palestinian" terrorists have done this in the Intifada and Bin Laden used ambulances to move around in Afghanistan.--J.T.]
The Americans also will consider allowing families who fled the city to return, at a rate of 50 families a day starting Tuesday.
"An agreement has been reached," Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said. "Whether or not that agreement holds is the million dollar question."
Let's all pray for the best, that the situation will be resolved peacefully in the days ahead and with no more bloodshed in both Najaf and Falluja.
I am so proud of our military for the restraint they're showing and for the wisdom of the COs to choose this strategy.
It would be easy for our guys to rush in, guns blazing and shoot both places up, taking no prisoners--kind of the way the British put down a similar rebellion in
--but it didn't do them much good as the administrators there and that's probably why we're trying to avoid that ruthlessly repressive option now.
We came to liberate Iraq and bring them democracy, not to establish a new overlord and nothing says this plainer than our military's peaceful response to their homegrown Islamist insurgency.
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