With the allied offensive to remove the current Fallujah terror menace beginning, key U.S. officials expressed their general expectations for the fight.
Well-armed insurgents will retreat into the heart of Falluja before making a stand against U.S. and Iraqi troops aiming to take control of the city, the top American officer in Iraq predicted on Monday.
But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he did not foresee large numbers of civilian casualties in the urban battle as a force of about 10,000-15,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops began an offensive to capture the rebel-held city west of Baghdad.
“What we have generally seen is that there is an outer crust of the defense — and our estimates tell us that they will probably fall back and go toward the center of the city where there will be probably a major confrontation,” Army Gen. George Casey told reporters at the Pentagon by telephone from Baghdad.
“I don’t want to get much more specific about what we know about that,” Casey said, adding that rebels had placed car bombs in Falluja and wired streets with explosives as “weapons of choice.”
Casey said, “We expect that we will have a fight in there over the next few days.”
At a later Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld declined to call the battle for Falluja a final showdown with insurgents, who rose up against U.S. and other foreign troops following the ouster of President Saddam Hussein in an American-led invasion last year. Casey said roughly 3,000 rebels were in Falluja.
“I wouldn’t use the word final,” Rumsfeld said.
“I think it’s a tough business and I think it’s going to take time.”
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Both Casey and Rumsfeld said they did not know what rebel leaders, including al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, remained in Falluja.
“It’s constantly changing. But I do believe that some of the key leaders will stay there and will fight with their soldiers,” said Casey, adding that the rebels were armed with weapons from AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy anti-aircraft-type guns.
This analysis of Fallujah as a booby-trapped and pre-wired exterior serving as a barrier to an anticipated, hard-fought urban showdown sounds familiar. Anybody remember the West Bank refugee camp/terror hive of Jenin in April, 2002, and the Palestinian allegations of a civilian massacre committed by the Israelis? Rumsfeld addressed the civilian issue.
Despite warnings from some analysts that the assault could kill hundreds of civilians in the city, Rumsfeld predicted that the discipline of U.S. troops would prevent large numbers of innocent casualties.
“There aren’t going to be large numbers of civilians killed, certainly not by U.S. forces,” he told reporters.
“The U.S. forces are disciplined. They are well-led. They’re well-trained. They are using precision. And they have rules of engagement that are appropriate to an urban environment.”
Many residents have already left the city of 300,000 people.
Despite all this, civilian losses are certain to happen, both at the hands of the American-Iraqi forces and the already-bloodied hands of the Islamist terrorists. Just like Jenin, expect al-Jazeera, along with the usual cast of leftists and anti-American sympathizers, to trumpet the cries of “Massacre!” Just like Jenin, expect the facts to be otherwise, though the truth will be late and will unfortunately but assuredly be downplayed internationally.