Marines Try to Monitor Fallujah in Truce

[Barrett808]

Marines Try to Monitor Fallujah in Truce
By KATARINA KRATOVAC, Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Behind rows of barbed wire, sandbags and armored Humvees, Iraqi laborers erected a fountain featuring a statue of two hands clasped in friendship.

With the symbolic statue in place, Marines opened a liaison office in a heavily guarded compound on the edge of Fallujah. They hope to retain a foothold in the volatile city, where U.S. forces and insurgents loyal to Saddam Hussein clashed last month, and help the Iraqis living in it.

"There is more money being spent here ... than in the 30 years of Saddam," said Col. Jesse Barker of the 1st Marine Division.

Fighting raged for almost a month here after the April 5 slaying of four U.S. civilian contractors, whose burning bodies were dragged by a frenzied crowd though the streets and hung from a bridge — a warning to Westerners venturing into this Sunni Muslim-dominated area.

...

Mayor Mahmoud Ibrahim al-Juraisi claims Fallujah is now the "calmest and the most peaceful city in Iraq," simply because Marines no longer are there.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040529/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_mission_unfinished&cid=540&ncid=1480

[NNN0LHI]

1. The Marines and mercenaries can't even sep foot into Fallujah. Wow

>>>Barker, a reservist from Statesville, N.C., is coordinating efforts to reconstruct Fallujah. But he concedes that since Marines and American contractors cannot set foot in the city, it is hard to tell what life there is like, much less how projects are coming along.<<<

Who won this battle?

Don

[Eloriel]

2. The Marine General who negotiated the peace -- Win/Win deal

AFAIC.

If neither Americans nor Iraqis (incl esp civilians) are getting killed, sounds like a good deal to me. Does it work longterm? I dunno. Frankly, I don't much care. I'm grateful that there's someplace experiencing a respite from the war. Maybe it's a model for some of the other cities?

[NNN0LHI]

3. The place is being run by one of Saddam's generals

I say turn the whole damn place over to him and run like hell. Don't make no difference to me. Give the whole place back to Saddam for all I care.

Don