Confusion as Iraqi general removed from Fallujah post

THE appointment of an Iraqi general to head the brigade taking over from US forces besieging Fallujah was reduced to farce yesterday.

The former Republican Guard general, who effectively took over on Friday, was summarily removed from the post that America’s top soldier said he had never had.

His replacement will be a general once exiled by Saddam Hussein, said US officials. The original commander, Major General Jassim Mohammed Saleh, who moved into Fallujah on Friday at the head of the new brigade, will probably be handed a subordinate position to Major General Mohammed Latif, the official said

General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that media were “very, very inaccurate” in identifying Maj Gen Saleh as commander of the Iraqi force that moved during the weekend into positions outside Fallujah.

He said officials in Baghdad were checking into Maj Gen Saleh’s background. Friends and relatives have said he served during the 1980s in Saddam’s feared Republican Guard. Later, they said, he headed Saddam’s infantry forces.

“There are people that know his record, know what he’s done in the previous Saddam Hussein regime,” Gen Myers said. “They’re going to have to find an appropriate role, if a role at all, for him,” he said.

Gen Myers said Maj Gen Saleh “has not been vetted yet and probably won’t be the one in command”.

But Marine Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne said near Fallujah that Maj Gen Saleh had opposed Saddam’s regime and paid a “steep personal price”.

Lt Col Byrne and his colleagues appeared to have accepted Maj Gen Saleh because he offered the best alternative to bloody fighting that could have produced casualty rates politically untenable both in Iraq and the United States.

The Marines pulled out of Fallujah, inhabited by adherents of Saddam’s Sunni branch of Islam, as elements of Maj Gen Saleh’s brigade replaced them. In the city, crowds waved Iraqi flags, cheered and celebrated, many flashing V for victory signs.

Gen Latif participated in meetings with Marines last week on the creation of the Brigade. A US official said yesterday the decision to put Gen Latif in charge emerged as it became clear he was more influential. “General Saleh as I understand it will be working at the battalion level, not the brigade level,” he said.