Assault on Fallujah 'quicker than expected'

The US military’s ground and air assault of Fallujah has gone quicker than expected, with the entire city occupied after six days of fighting, Marine Major General Richard Natonski said today.

Natonski, who designed the ground attack, said he and other planners took lessons from the failed three-week Marine assault on the city in April, which was called off by the Bush administration after a worldwide outcry over civilians deaths.

This time, the military sent in six times as many troops and 20 types of aircraft, while patching other holes in the April siege.

“Maybe we learned from April,” Natonski said. “We learned we can’t do it piecemeal. When we go in, we go all the way through. We had the green light this time and we went all the way.”

“Had we done in April what we did now, the results would’ve been the same,” Natonski said during a visit to the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Brigade, the unit charged with isolating Fallujah under a security cordon.

Marines and Army units were still battling gritty bands of defenders scattered in buildings and bunkers across the Sunni Muslim stronghold today.

Behind them, Iraqi troops were enmeshed in the painstaking task of clearing weapons and fighters from every room of Fallujah’s estimated 50,000 buildings.

Bands of rebels were still roving neighbourhoods crushed under tons of bombs and shells, attacking US forces who now occupy – but have yet to subdue – the entire city.

“There are groups numbering from five to 30,” Natonski said. “They’re moving too. They’re trying to get behind us.”

In the coming days and weeks, after troops uproot the insurgents, contractors are supposed to swarm into Fallujah to cart away rubble, repair buildings, and fix the city’s water, sewer and electricity systems.

The Iraqi government has already picked leaders for Fallujah, and thousands of Iraqi police and paramilitary forces have been recruited to try to impose order on the city.

Natonski said he was astonished at how closely the battle has hued to his plan. He described the six days of ground war as a “flawless execution of the plan we drew up”.

“We are ahead of schedule,” he said.

Natonski said several pre-assault tactics made the battle easier than expected.

Insurgent defences were weakened by bombing raids on command posts and safe houses in the weeks and months leading up to Monday’s attack.

Air-dropped leaflets may have also demoralised some defenders and convinced some residents that the city would be better off under government control, he said.

In the days before the raid, ground troops feinted invasions, charging right up to Fallujah’s edge in tanks and armoured vehicles.

Natonski said these feints forced the insurgents to build up forces in the south and east, perhaps diverting defenders from the north, where six battalions of Army and Marine troops finally punched into the city on Monday.

The deceptive manoeuvres also drew fire from defenders’ bunkers, which were exposed and relentlessly bombed before the ground assault.

Last Saturday night, attackers feinted for the last time, this time from the north, taking the actual assault positions they would use on Monday. The manoeuvre was a valuable rehearsal and allowed the forces to set up communications posts outside the city, Natonski said.

By Monday evening, Fallujah’s defenders were suspicious of US troop movements and stayed under cover, figuring the troop movements ahead of the 7pm invasion were another trick to draw them out, Natonski said.

“That’s kind of what we wanted,” Natonski said. “We desensitised the enemy to the formations they saw on the night we attacked.”

Another key tactic was choking off the city, the responsibility of the 2nd Brigade of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division, Natonski said.

That move prevented insurgents from slipping out of the city during the assault, although many, including top leaders like Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Sheikh Abdullah al-Janabi and Omar al-Hadid, are thought to have fled.

“Some may have gotten out, including the bigwigs, like Zarqawi,” Natonski said. “We never expected them to be there. We’re not after Zarqawi. We’re after insurgents in general.”

But the tourniquet around Fallujah allowed US troops to kill more than 1,200 guerrillas, Natonski said.

Many tried to blast their way out with mortar and machine-gun fire but could not penetrate the outer defences, especially those of the Marines’ 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, which blocked the city’s dusty eastern and southern approaches.

The most difficult work of the battle of Fallujah lies ahead, Natonski said. The work of setting up a local government and restoring order is expected to be tougher than the ground battle.