The president had asked for options.
At the MEF on April 24, Bremer explained to the generals that two negotiating tracks were under way. First, the Governing Council negotiators, led by Hassani. They were waiting in Conway’s bedroom with Jensen, Stu Jones, and MajGen Weber. Second—unbeknownst to the Hassani group—Ayad Allawi, soon to be named prime minister, was holding secret negotiations with Janabi.
Conway did not tell Bremer that the MEF was pursuing a third negotiating track via CIA contacts with former Iraqi generals.
To those gathered at the MEF, one option now seemed viable. The Iraqis at the MEF recommended that the Marines patrol with the National Guard who had deserted two weeks earlier. The delegation from Fallujah nominated a new commander to be placed above LtCol Suleiman. He was LtCol Jassim Hatim, a trim, neat man who spoke some English and presented a distinct military bearing. Details about where he came from and his past were hazy, but the city elders pushed him in front of Suleiman, who was considered an outsider because he was born in a different town.
The MEF staff and Conway believed joint patrols were a reasonable request. They told Bremer they needed a few days to work out the details. On the afternoon of April 24, Abizaid, Bremer, Sanchez, and Conway agreed to extend the cease-fire for another three days so the Marines could patrol jointly with the Iraqis. Bremer flew back to Baghdad for a sivits teleconference with Washington, satisfied that the Marines’ idea of conducting joint patrols was sound.
_____
On April 24, the battalion commanders left the meeting with Toolan not understanding why the game plan had been changed at the line of scrimmage. Mattis had his troops psychologically motivated to attack. There were four battalions on the line, a ten-minute drive from one to the next. Mattis knew every sergeant major and battalion commander; Toolan knew every gunnery sergeant and platoon commander. From Col Toolan to McCoy to Cpl Amaya’s squad, those fighting and dying on the lines were a small, tight-knit group. After weeks of the nightly taunting, the sharp
crack!
of the sniper’s bullet, the metallic
thunk
of a mortar shell leaving the tube, and the boots and rifle ceremony for another dead comrade, every Marine entrenched around the city wanted to finish the fight, not walk away from it. The Marines understood that if they stopped, the insurgents would believe they had won, grow stronger, and be harder to defeat the next time.
By the evening of the twenty-fourth, as each Marine battalion planned in detail, the concept of joint patrols appeared to ensure victory in another guise. Each patrol assumed it would be attacked, so each had requested a Quick Reaction Force to stand by with tanks. The odds were overwhelming that heavy fights would erupt within hours. Battalion 3/4, for example, was planning that Kilo would lead with a patrol to Janabi’s mosque, with Lima and tanks standing by. A fierce fight was guaranteed. The same was true when Byrne advanced toward the government center, when Kyser turned up the Yellow Brick Road, and when Olson headed down toward the Jolan.
Once the patrols began, the insurgents would fight back, the “cease-fire” would be shattered, and the Blue Diamond would be back on the offensive. At the tactical level, the Marines believed that the Iraqi security forces were a token gesture that provided political cover without altering the military strategy. The joint patrols were a brilliant negotiating ploy. The generals and ambassadors had set a trap. All that was needed were a few Iraqi soldiers to lend a joint flavor, and the battle was on.
_____
The next morning, Toolan and his battalion commanders met at the Fallujah Liaison Building with the Iraqi National Guard officers. Over the course of the previous week 350 Iraqi soldiers had returned to their barracks, more than enough for joint patrols. With the air-conditioning turned on full blast, a dozen Iraqis and Marines sat uncomfortably around the table, notebooks open. No one was smiling.
Toolan got right to the point. “The Fallujah council agreed yesterday that we are going to patrol together,” he said. “The council nominated Colonel Hatim to be the Iraqi brigade commander.”
As a Marine interpreter rapidly translated, Toolan leaned forward to look directly at a stern-faced LtCol Hatim in a white shirt and pressed chinos. Originally from Fallujah, the former army officer had returned to his hometown a few days earlier. The story was that he had accused a National Guard unit somewhere to the north of fraud and had to flee for his life. Toolan had authorized Hatim to use a confiscated black BMW, but Hatim refused, saying that he couldn’t be seen working for the Americans. Now Hatim was being offered the senior command.
When Hatim didn’t respond one way or the other, Toolan turned to LtCol Suleiman, commanding the 506th Battalion. The mutilation at the trestle bridge happened on March 31, a week after the Marines had taken over from LtCol Drinkwine. The Marines knew Drinkwine admired Suleiman, a solidly-built man with a bristling mustache. But since Fallujah had erupted, Suleiman had stayed in his compound with his few remaining soldiers. Toolan knew him slightly.
“I need leaders from Fallujah to stand up,” Toolan said to Suleiman. “We’ll equip your men. We need them to live with our Marines twenty-four hours a day for the next few weeks. We’ll pay them good money and take care of them.”
“They won’t do it,” Suleiman said, shaking his head.
Toolan looked at a pinched-faced Iraqi sitting next to Suleiman. Lieutenant Colonel Jabar, who commanded the 505th Battalion and took his cues from Suleiman, refused to say anything. The 505th had collapsed at the railroad station on April 13, when LCpl Gray was killed in the searchlight tower.
“You’re asking too much,” Suleiman said, answering for Jabar. “We cannot do this.”
Toolan turned to the police chief, an overweight man who was drinking a second bottle of cold water.
“My police have lost everything,” the chief said. “No cars, no equipment. We can do nothing.”
“I’ll provide cars,” Toolan said. “Bring ten or fifteen of your men tomorrow. I’ll have a hundred Marines walking with them, with tanks.”
“No walking. We should drive to the city hall [Government Center] together,” the chief said. “Marines on the street make the people nervous. It’s better to drive to city hall, then leave.”
“That’s the old way and it didn’t work. I was with the 82nd when we drove to city hall in March. We were shot at and the police disappeared,” Toolan said. “If someone shoots at us, we are shooting back this time until it is over. We walk, and we choose where we walk.”
The Iraqi leaders shook their heads and looked down at their notebooks.
“The people refuse joint patrols,” Hatim said. “You can destroy the city, like Hiroshima. I believe in dialogue, not force.”
LtCol Olson tried his hand. “Colonel Suleiman, we must build trust together,” he said. “Show the people we work together. We won’t enter a single house unless we are shot at. Like any city in the world, we must have feet on the ground to know what is going on.”
Suleiman shook his head no and looked away.
Hatim, becoming more agitated, ignored Suleiman and leaned across to speak to Toolan. “All is like the war last year. No electricity, no water,” he said. “The Americans before you didn’t have respect for the people. Drove where they pleased. Many mistakes. I had eighteen years in the army all over Iraq. This is a good city. This fighting is America’s fault.”
“The city is not safe now, Colonel,” Toolan said. “Together we’ll bring safety, and I’ll bring money. Forty million dollars. I’m here until October. By then the city will have electricity, clean water, many jobs.”
Hatim shrugged and looked down at his hands.
LtCol Byrne tried a different tack. “Colonel Hatim,” he said, “can we agree that we share the same goals? We both want the heavy weapons and the foreign fighters removed from the city, do we not?”
“That is an American story. There are no foreign fighters,” Hatim said. “Anyone attacking my house, I fight. You are fighting everyone. There is no trust of you. We take care of security by ourselves. If you are not here, there is no problem.”
Toolan looked again at Suleiman, who had withdrawn from the conversation. It was impossible to tell whether he was distancing himself from Hatim’s remarks or was miffed that the Fallujah council had offered Hatim a position above him.
“My boss,” Toolan said to Suleiman, “wants joint patrols.”
Suleiman shook his head.
“My soldiers will not come,” he said. “They are afraid to be seen with Americans. Their families are afraid. We will not go into Fallujah with you.”
_____
When the Iraqis left, Toolan told his commanders to stay behind and beckoned to an army staff sergeant sitting in the corner. Staff Sergeant Rashed Qawasimi walked forward and sat next to Toolan.
“Well?” Toolan asked.
Qawasimi, a Palestinian by birth, had the linguist’s gift for mimicking local dialects. An intelligence operative, he had worked for Mattis and Toolan a year earlier. He wanted to remain undercover as long as possible, listening but not speaking Arabic.
“Colonel, they won’t come around, no matter how many meetings you hold,” SSgt Qawasimi said. “Joint patrols are dead. Anyone seen with us ends up with a cut throat.”
“What’s going on between Hatim and Suleiman?”
“Suleiman’s genuinely pissed. You said you were placing Hatim on top of him. His pride is hurt.”
“I said the council wanted to do that,” Toolan said.
“You’re the man, Colonel,” Qawasimi said. “You provide the payroll. Council’s got squat.”
“The Council goes along to get along,” Toolan said. “They want Hatim. That means Hatim’s acceptable to the other side, and Suleiman’s not. I’m not anointing Hatim just yet.”
“They’re both staying away from us, sir,” Qawasimi said. “Joint patrols will never happen.”
_____
While Toolan was meeting with the Iraqis, Mattis was driving back to division headquarters outside Ramadi. Toolan called Col Dunford to say the joint patrols looked like a nonstarter. Back at the Blue Diamond, Dunford pulled together a dozen officers to assess the alternatives. When Mattis arrived, Dunford began the meeting by saying that the only written guidance was the JTF Warning Order of April 22, advising the division to be prepared to resume offensive operations. The concept of joint patrols had been passed verbally to the division. Now that idea was dead.
We’ve lost weeks,
Dunford concluded,
and we’re back at square one. The division is ready to execute, but the staff doesn’t know what’s going on at higher levels.
“If you’re not confused,” Mattis said, addressing everyone in the room, “then you don’t know how confusing the situation is. Now, what’s our take on what’s going on inside Fallujah?”
The G-2 intelligence staff section and the “G-X” section, specializing in Iraqi personalities and culture, jointly answered. Inside the G-X staff section were several senior Arab Americans born in Arab countries and hired through an American corporation. The real leaders in Iraq weren’t the city council, they said; the real leaders were anti-Coalition imams, sheikhs, and former Baathists, many of them thugs, gangsters, and shakedown artists. With the electric power turned off, the sources of news were the mosques, and in most cases the news was stridently anti-American and anti-Baghdad. Petty crime was rampant throughout the city.
Kidnapping was the new growth industry. Some captives were beheaded, but most were ransomed. The criminals had worked out a revenue scale: $5,000 (U.S. currency only) for a truck driver from Baghdad, $15,000 for a driver from Jordan, $50,000 for an employee of a major corporation. The Arab Americans on the division staff said they had not identified any “moderate” leaders who actually had followers inside the city. In Fallujah, if you were nice, you were seen as weak.
“The insurgents have lost up to a thousand killed in the past month,” Mattis said. “How long to replace?”
“There are twenty thousand fresh recruits in there,” LtCol Groen, the G-2, replied. “There are hundreds of former army officers to act as trainers. Give them a month, and they’ll replace all their losses.”
“That assumes a sanctuary,” Mattis said.
“Sir, it is a sanctuary,” Groen said.
“Not for long,” Mattis said. “We’ll execute our battle plan. We’ll clean, hold, and bring in Iraqi security forces. We’ll immediately start high-impact projects. Our Seabees are terrific at that. Hire men to truck out the garbage heaps, sweep away the rubble, clean up that shit hole. Offer thousands of jobs. Develop civic pride. Get enthusiasm going. Offer hope that the future’s going to be better. Don’t let them dwell on the past.”
“Sounds good, sir, but the enemy’s center of gravity is his intimidation of the people,” Groen said. “That requires Iraqi leaders to break through. We can’t do that. Once word goes out it’s an American idea to clean up, they’ll leave their city a shit hole.”
“We have no idea how many are hard-core and how many are hangers-on who will shoot at us one day and pick up the garbage the next day,” Dunford said. “We don’t know where the tipping point is between intimidation and true allegiance. There’s no historical precedent for how to defeat an insurgency that has no political cause or leadership hierarchy.”
“We’re not going to let Fallujah be a sanctuary,” Mattis said. “Our guidance remains the Frag-O for offensive ops. When we’re done, Governor Burgis owns Fallujah. We’re conceding no special status to that city.”
_____
While Toolan and Mattis were holding their separate meetings, at the MEF Conway had received a phone call from Sanchez with a blunt message. The White House, Sanchez said, would never give the Marines the green light to take the city. The White House was under too much pressure from too many different directions. However, the Marines could remain in a cordon around the city. The White House still wanted the insurgents contained, but with the minimum casualties possible.
It was up to Conway to square that circle. Ambassador Richard Jones had left the MEF earlier that day believing the joint patrols were set for April 27. Since then Toolan had reported the patrols were unlikely. Due to the CIA channel, though, Conway had one ace in the hole.