Second Battle of Fallujah

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Operation Phantom Fury
Part of the Post-invasion Iraq
A building in Fallujah destroyed during the battle.
Date November 7, 2004–December 23, 2004 Location Fallujah, Iraq Result U.S. and Iraqi victory
Combatants
United States Iraqi Security Forces	Mujahideen Shura of al-Falluja Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Commanders
Richard F. Natonski	Abdullah al-Janabi Omar Hussein Hadid
Strength
8,000 (including 3,000 combat troops)	4,000 - 5,000 (combatants)
Casualties
U.S.: 95 killed, 786 wounded Iraqi: 8 killed, 43 wounded	2,500 killed (U.S. est.), 1,500 captured

The Battle of Fallujah (code-named Operation Al-Fajr - "The Dawn" in Arabic, and Operation Phantom Fury), sometimes referred to as the Second Battle of Fallujah in comparison to Operation Vigilant Resolve—was a U.S. Marine Corps led, joint U.S.-Iraqi offensive against rebel strongholds in the city of Fallujah, authorized by the U.S.-appointed Iraq interim government. The U.S. military called it "the heaviest urban combat since the battle of Hue City in Vietnam."^[1][2]

It was the second major operation in Fallujah; in April, Operation Vigilant Resolve was an abortive attempt to capture the city. That earlier operation was terminated when local leaders promised to curb the rebels.

[edit] Timeline

Fallujah was one of the most peaceful areas of the country just after the fall of Saddam. There was very little looting and the new mayor of the city — Taha Bidaywi Hamed, selected by local tribal leaders — was staunchly pro-American.

• 28 April 2003. A crowd of 200 people defied the curfew and gathered outside a local school to protest the presence of foreign forces in the city. This developed into an altercation with U.S. Army Soldiers in the city in which fifteen Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. Army gunfire. There were no Coalition casualties in the incident.

• 1 May 2003: President Bush proclaims the end of "major combat operations in Iraq."

• 13 December 2003: Saddam Hussein is captured.

• February, 2004: Control of Fallujah, and the surrounding area in the Al-Anbar province, is turned over to the 1st Marine Division, and the Army's 82nd Airborne Division is relieved of their command.

• 31 March 2004: Four American private military contractors are killed in the city, and images of their mutilated bodies are broadcast around the world.

• 4 April 2004: American Marines launch Operation Vigilant Resolve.

• 28 April 2004: Operation Vigilant Resolve ends with an agreement that the local population would keep resistance fighters out of the city. A Fallujah Protection Force composed of local Iraqis was set up by the US led occupants to help fight the rising resistance.

• 2 November 2004: U.S. presidential election, 2004

• 6 November 2004: U.S. Marines stage just north of Fallujah. The city, having now been under complete insurgent contol with no American presence since April, has had large numbers of booby traps and IEDs constructed and set in place, elevated sniper positions created, and heavily fortified defensive positions built up and manned all throughout the city in preparation for a major offensive.

• 7 November 2004: Operation Phantom Fury begins.

• 16 November 2004: American spokesmen describe fighting in the city as mopping up isolated pockets of resistance. News footage shows a U.S. Marine, with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, shooting a wounded Iraqi insurgent.

• 23 December 2004: Last pockets of resistance are neutralized, three Marines are killed in the last skirmish, along with 24 insurgents. Operation Phantom Fury ends having been the bloodiest battle in the Iraq War to date.

• January, 2005: American Marines begin withdrawing.

[edit] Preparation for the battle

Before beginning their attack, American and Iraqi forces established checkpoints around the city to prevent anyone from entering the city and intercept insurgents attempting to flee. In addition overhead imagery was used to prepare maps of the city for use by the attackers. American units were augmented with Iraqi translators to assist them in the planned fight. After weeks of withstanding scarce air strikes and artillery bombardment, the militants holed up in the city appeared somewhat vulnerable to a direct attack, and the U.S. Marines were ready to finish the job they had been forced to abort the prior spring.

[edit] Conduct of the battle

U.S. soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division, supporting the U.S. Marine Led attack, prepare to enter a building during fighting in Fallujah.

DIVERSION: Ground operations began on the night of November 7, 2004 with one Iraqi Commando Battalion and one U.S. Marine Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion attacking from the west and south, capturing Fallujah General Hospital and villages opposite the Euphrates River along Fallujah's Western edge. The capture and closure of the hospital caused much controversy, concerning whether or not it was a contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Marines from Mike Battery, 4th Battalion, 14th Marines operate the 155mm M198 howitzer in November 2004. The battery was based at Camp Fallujah, Iraq and was supporting Operation Phantom Fury. Photo credit: USMC photo by LCpl Samantha Jones.

The same unit, operating under the command of the U.S. Army III Armored Corps then moved on the western approaches to the city securing the Jurf Kas Sukr Bridge. These initial attacks, however, were little more than a diversion, intended to distract and confuse the rebels defending the city.

ATTACK: American units consisting of four Marine Light Infantry battalions, with two Army Mechanized Cavalry battalions in support (while a large number of Non-Fighting American units remained just outside of the city to the north), launched their attack along a broad front, jumping off from behind the railroad line that runs along the northern edge of the city. By daylight on November 8, the main train station had fallen to American Marines. By the afternoon, under the protection of intense air cover, Marines had entered the Hay Naib al-Dubat and al-Naziza districts. Shortly after nightfall on November 9, Marines were reportedly along Highway 10 in the center of the city. By dawn on the 13th, most of the city was in American hands, and any formal defense organized by the militants had been destroyed.

By November 16, after nine days of fighting, the American Marines described the action as mopping up pockets of resistance, but sporadic fighting continued until December 23.

The AP reported that military-age males attempting to flee the city were turned back by the U.S. Military.[1]

Despite its success, the battle was not without its controversy. On November 16, NBC News aired footage that showed an American Marine, with 3rd Battalion 1st Marines, shooting dead a wounded Iraqi fighter. The Marine was heard exclaiming that the Iraqi was "playing possum". U. S. Navy investigators NCIS later determined that the Marine was acting in self-defense. [2].

By late January 2005, news reports indicated American combat units were leaving the area, and were assisting the local population in returning to their city.

[edit] Aftermath

The city suffered extensive damage. Fallujah was referred to as the "City of Mosques". Before the war, it was estimated that the city had 200+ mosques. Some claim 60 of these had been destroyed in the fighting. Perhaps half the homes suffered at least some damage. About 7,000 to 10,000 of the roughly 50,000 buildings in the town are estimated to have been destroyed in the offensive ([3], [4]), and half to two-thirds of the buildings have suffered notable damage. It is also reported that 66 out of the city's 133 mosques were discovered holding significant amounts of insurgent weapons [5], a violation of Article 16 of the Geneva Convention. [6]

News reports indicate 95 Americans were killed, and over 700 were wounded in the fighting. Iraqi casualty figures are unreliable as an unknown number of residents fled before the fighting. A Department of Defense news report claims that some 2,500 insurgents were killed and another 1,500 were captured. Also the Iraqi military suffered eighteen soldiers killed and 43 wounded.

Pre-offensive inhabitant figures are unreliable; the nominal population was assumed to have been 200,000–350,000. Thus, over 150,000 individuals are still living as internally displaced persons elsewhere in Iraq.

Residents were allowed to return in mid-December after undergoing biometric identification, provided they wear their ID cards all the time. Reconstruction is progressing slowly and mainly consists of clearing rubble from heavily-damaged areas and reestablishing basic utilities. Only 10% of the pre-offensive inhabitants had returned as of mid-January, and only 30% as of the end of March 2005 [7].

The re-capture of the city itself proved to be largely a success, with a large number of local insurgent fighters being killed, and the momentum the Sunni rebellion had gained from controlling the city being dashed in the face of overwhelming U.S. firepower. Furthermore, Al-Qaeda's foothold in Iraq had been seriously degraded, even though its leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi managed to escape. Insurgent elements almost immediately began to attempt to re-group their power base in the city, with limited results. Nevertheless the battle proved to be less than the decisive engagement that the U.S. military had hoped for, some of the nonlocal insurgents were believed to have fled before the military assault along with Zarqawi leaving mostly local militants behind. Subsequent U.S. military operations against insurgent positions were ineffective at drawing out insurgents into another open battle, and by September 2006 the situation had deteriorated to the point that the Al-Anbar province that contained Falluja was reported to be in total insurgent control by the U. S. Marine Corps, with the exception of only pacified Fallujah, but now with an insurgent plagued Ramadi. [8] [9]

Since the US military operation of November 2004, the number of insurgent attacks has gradually increased in and around the city, and although news reports are often few and far between, several reports of IED attacks on Iraqi troops have been reported in the press. Most notable of these attacks was a suicide car bomb attack on 23 June 2005 on a convoy that killed 6 Marines. Thirteen other Marines were injured in the attack. However, insurgents are no longer able to operate in the city in any significant numbers.

[edit] White phosphorus controversy

Wikinews has news related to:

Chemical weapons used in Iraq by US military, says Italian documentary

A US M-109A6 self-propelled howitzer fires at insurgent positions in Fallujah

On 26 November 2004, independent journalist Dahr Jamail was perhaps the first to report on the use of "Unusual Weapons" used in the November 2004 siege of Fallujah [10]. US media watchdog group Project Censored awarded Jamail's story as contributing to the #2 underreported story of the year, "Media Coverage Fails on Iraq" [11]. On 9 November, 2005 the Italian state-run broadcaster RAI ran a documentary titled "Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre" depicting what it alleges was the United States' use of white phosphorus (WP) in the attack causing insurgents and civilians to be killed or injured by chemical burns . The effects of WP are very characteristic. The resulting bodies were partially turned into what appears to be ash, but sometimes the hands of the bodies had skin or skin layers peeled off and hanging like gloves instead. The documentary further claims that the United States used incendiary MK-77 bombs (similar to napalm). The use of incendiary weapons against civilians is illegal by Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (1980); however, the US is not a signatory. Moreover, the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (signed by the US) prohibit the use of the chemical properties of white phosphorus against personnel. The documentary stated:

"WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out... We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions."

The US State Department initially denied using white phosphorus as a munition, a claim later contradicted by the Department of Defense when bloggers discovered a US Army magazine had run a story detailing its use in Fallujah. The US government maintains its denial of use against civilians, while trying to justify the offensive use of WP against enemy combatants. However, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, quoted by the RAI documentary, WP is allowed as an illumination device, not as an offensive weapon, for which its chemical properties are put to use. An article in Washington Post exactly a year before also pointed out the use of White Phosphorus in the battle, but attracted little attention.

[edit] Dissenting views on Fallujah from within the U.S. military

At least one prominently-placed person within the U.S. military establishment, an unnamed USAF Colonel in charge of planning urban bombing operations, has expressed grave doubts about the necessity and appropriateness of the degree of force used at Fallujah, drawing an comparison to the Wehrmacht debacle at Stalingrad during World War II, and explicitly indicating that the U.S. public is not being presented with a forthright assessment of what happened when U.S. forces besieged the city.

Journalist Seymour Hersh has recounted a phone conversation he had with his unnamed source, during several interviews and public appearances in the last two years, for example at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York in early 2005:

We're not told. We know nothing about the extent of bombing. So if they're going to carry out an election and if they're going to succeed, bombing is going to be key to it, which means that what happened in Fallujah, essentially Iraq -- some of you remember Vietnam -- Iraq is being turn into a "free-fire zone" right in front of us. Hit everything, kill everything. I have a friend in the Air Force, a Colonel, who had the awful task of being an urban bombing planner, planning urban bombing, to make urban bombing be as unobtrusive as possible. I think it was three weeks ago today, three weeks ago Sunday after Fallujah I called him at home. I'm one of the people -- I don't call people at work. I call them at home, and he has one of those caller I.D.'s, and he picked up the phone and he said, "Welcome to Stalingrad." We know what we're doing. This is deliberate. It's being done. They're not telling us. They're not talking about it.^[3]

[edit] Participating units

Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1) built around the 1st Marine Regiment:

• 3rd Battalion 1st Marines (Infantry)(*Main Effort*)
• 3rd Battalion 5th Marines (Infantry)
• 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (Mechanized)(Armored)
• 3rd Battalion 14th Marines— Battery "M" (Artillery)
• 1st Battalion 5th Cavalry (US Army) (Armored)
• 2nd Battalion 7th Cavalry (US Army) (Armored)
• Company C, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, (Armored)
• 2nd Tank Battalion — Co C
• TOW Platoon (-), 23rd Marines
• Scout Platoon, Headquarters & Service Company, 4th Tank Battalion
• Company A, MP Battalion, 4th Marine Logistics Group, 4th Marine Division
• Company B, (reinforced), 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, 2nd Marine Division
• 4th Civil Affairs Team, 4th Civil Affairs Group
• Shock Trauma Platoon, 1st Marine Logistics Group
• Company B, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines
• Company B, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines

Regimental Combat Team 7 (RCT-7) built around the 7th Marine Regiment:

• 1st Battalion 3rd Marines (Infantry)
• 1st Battalion 8th Marines (Infantry)
• 1st Battalion 12th Marines — Battery "C" (Artillery)
• 2nd Tank Battalion — Co A (Armored)
• Company C, 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion
• 44th Engineer Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division
• Company C, 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion (Armored)
• Company B, MP Battalion, 4th Marine Logistics Group
• Combat Engineer Company, Combat Assault Battalion, 3rd Marine Division
• 2nd Force Recon Company
• 2nd Platoon, Company C, 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion

2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division

• 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment
• 759th Composite MP Battalion
• 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion
• 15th Forward Support Battalion

3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division

• 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment (US Army)(in Reserve)
• F Troop, [4th Cavalry] (Brigade Reconnaissance Troop)

US Army Special Operations Command(embedded)

Iraqi Forces

• 1st Specialized Special Forces Battalion (Iraqi National Guard), Companies D and B
• Iraqi 36th Commando Battalion
• Iraqi Counterterrorism Force
• Emergency Response Unit (Iraqi-Ministry of Interior)
• 1st Battalion, 1st Brigade, Iraqi Intervention Force (ICDC)
• 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade, Iraqi Intervention Force (ICDC)
• 4th Battalion, 1st Brigade, Iraqi Intervention Force (ICDC)
• 5th Battalion, 3rd Brigade, Iraqi Intervention Force (ICDC)

[edit] Books

• No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah, by Bing West (2005) (ISBN: 9780553804027)
• We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah, by Patrick O'Donnell (2006) (ISBN: 9780306814693)
• Fighting For Fallujah: A New Dawn for Iraq, by John R. Ballard (2006) (ISBN: 9780275990558)

[edit] Articles

Roman O. Reyhani, "The Legality of the Use of White Phosphorus by the United States Military during the 2004 Fallujah Assaults" (January 24, 2007). Berkeley Electronic Presss Preprint Series. Working Paper 1959.

[edit] Films

• Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre, a controversial documentary detailing the use of white phosphorus and Mk-77 by the U.S. Army against civilians in the city. (Google Video)
• No True Glory : A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah based on the book by Bing West scheduled for release in 2008, starring Harrison Ford as General Mattis. [12]
• Occupation: Dreamland; Documentary film (2005) [13]

[edit] See also

United States Marine Corps Portal

• Iraqi Insurgency
• History of Iraqi insurgency
• United States occupation of Fallujah
• 2004 in Iraq
• Operation Vigilant Resolve
• Urban warfare
• Battle of Hue City
• White phosphorus use in Iraq
• Mark 77 bomb
• Hillbilly armor
• 2003 Invasion of Iraq

[edit] External links

• Operation Phantom Fury, October 5, 2004 - ?
• (French) Les Fantômes furieux de Falloujah "Opération AL-FAJR/PHANTOM FURY" (juillet-novembre 2004), Centre de doctrine d'emploi des forces, Ministère of the Défense, France, format PDF, book of 120 pages
• U.S. ground forces hit Fallujah - Jim Krane, Associated Press
• U.S. Forces Hold 70 Percent of Fallujah - Edward Harris, MyWay News, November 10, 2004
• The real fury of Fallujah - Criticism of the operation from Asia Times Online, November 10, 2004
• Operation al-Fajr (Dawn) - GlobalSecurity.Org
• US forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on city of Fallujah - The Independent, November 8, 2005
• Charges the US used Chemical Weapons Democracy Now
• The Phantom Fury Gallery - A gallery of images gathered from news reports at the time of the operation
• U.S. Broadcast Exclusive - "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre" on the U.S. Use of Napalm-Like White Phosphorus Bombs "interviews with U.S. soldiers, Iraqi doctors and international journalists on the U.S. attack on Fallujah" (Democracy Now, 8 November 2005)
• George Monbiot: Behind the phosphorus clouds are war crimes within war crimes We now know the US also used thermobaric weapons in its assault on Falluja, where up to 50,000 civilians remained (The Guardian; November 22, 2005)
• Shootout: Fallujah - History Channel documentary about the Battle of Fallujah
• Channel 4 News : Eyewitness Fallujah : A British TV Cameraman's account of Operation Phantom Fury
• Falluja: The hidden massacre Documentary Video RAI News 24 (On Google Video)
• Unusual Weapons used in Fallujah - Dahr Jamail, IPS, November 26, 2004