U.S. prepares for forceful return to Fallujah

By Edmund Sanders and Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times

	KARIM KADIM / AP Iraqi police officers patrol downtown Fallujah, Iraq, yesterday. A top U.S. military official said Thursday that the Marines would retake Fallujah by overwhelming force if necessary.
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FALLUJAH, Iraq — The charred bodies have been cut down from a bridge over the Euphrates River, but the shadows of the four American security contractors who were killed here continue to fall over this restive Iraqi town.

As leaders in the United States and Iraq huddle to map their next moves in Fallujah, the key actors on the ground are showing no signs of being able to prevent a fierce clash.

A day earlier, a senior U.S. military official said the American forces would not embark on "a pell-mell rush" into Fallujah, and that any military strike "will be precise" and "overwhelming."

On the outskirts of the city last night, battalions from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force geared for a battle, setting up checkpoints and camps in preparation for their eventual return to the hostile city. As they braced against one of the season's first blistering sandstorms, several Marines said they were rearing to avenge Wednesday's killings.

"I've got a lot of hate inside me, but I try to put that aside," said Sgt. Eric Nordwig, 29, of Riverside, Calif., a veteran of the battle to topple Saddam Hussein. "We just sit and take it and be mortared." The time has come to "clean up the town," he said.

In Washington, D.C., Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz briefed members of the House Armed Services Committee on plans for retaliation in Fallujah. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the committee's chairman, said the classified briefing suggested that a reprisal may entail the use of U.S. air power.

Inside Fallujah, many of the city's quarter-million residents warned of further bloodshed if the Marines return. In an interview before Friday prayers, a senior Fallujah cleric made no apologies for the attack on the four Americans as they drove through the town Wednesday morning, but he condemned the subsequent mutilation of corpses and dragging of the bodies through the streets.

Fallujah residents called the attack a justified response to a Marine patrol through the city last week that ended in a firefight killing one Marine and about 18 Iraqis, including some civilians.

"It is inevitable that the sons of Fallujah will kill the Americans and mutilate their corpses," said Fallujah resident Fadhil Badrani. "Though mutilation is not allowed in Islam, the grudge and malice in the hearts of the people led them to do this because of the repeated American provocation."

Such reactions are disappointing to U.S. officials, who have been pushing Fallujah's clerics and local government officials to condemn the attacks and help catch those who took part. A public call to Fallujah citizens for assistance in the case has yielded a few tips, Marine officials said.
 
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the senior military spokesman, said the city could avoid a crackdown if it handed over the attackers. "The question — Is there going to be a fight? — is one you should ask the insurgents, one that you should ask the government, the governors and the mayor inside Fallujah," Kimmitt said Thursday.

Military leaders had even hoped that some clerics might issue a fatwa, or religious edict, banning attacks on Americans. But no such calls were heard in the major prayers yesterday. And just a block away from where the American convoy was attacked, graffiti read, "It is permitted to steal from Americans; it is permitted to kill Americans for vengeance."

In Fallujah, residents spent yesterday going about their usual routines. Some shops were open, though most of the city was quiet in observance of the Muslim day of worship. Iraqi police and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps officers patrolled the streets. "But there is an uneasy calm," Badrani said.

A few miles away, about 4,000 Marines awaited anxiously to execute the U.S. military response to the killings.

Marines took charge of Fallujah — one of the most anti-American cities in Iraq — a week ago. Since they arrived, the Marines have dodged mortar fire, engaged in a major firefight with insurgents, and seen three of their men killed in attacks in the past two weeks.

Maj. Gen. James Mattis, commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, has told his troops that this is a "war of patience" in which they will not, in some cases, be able to respond even when the Marines take casualties.

Patience is a difficult sell for some Marines.

"It's hard (to be patient)," said Lance Cpl. Michael Shaffer, 22, of Owensboro, Ky. "Unfortunately, I know it's more a mental fight than a physical fight. If we go in and tear up the place, the Iraqi people will resent that, and we'll just have more trouble."

Los Angeles Times correspondent Hamed Sulaibi in Fallujah contributed to this report.

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