Refinitiv Newscasts - How the Falluja ambush impacted the Iraq War
16/03/2023 08:27
Click the following link to watch video: https://share.newscasts.refinitiv.com/link?entryId=1_iby80yml&referenceId=tag:reuters.com,2023:newsml_RW766315032023RP1_K15&pageId=RefinitivNewscasts Source: Thomson Reuters Description: A year after President George W. Bush launched the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, four U.S. civilian security contractors were ambushed and brutally killed by insurgents in the city of Falluja. Reuters journalist Michael Georgy explains how the attack proved to be a defining moment in the conflict. This video contains graphic images that some viewers may find distressing. Short Link: https://refini.tv/3Lt1zoK Video Transcript: 20 years on since the Iraq War began, these violent scenes remain a defining moment of the US-led invasion. On March 31, 2004, four US civilian security contractors drove into the city of Falluja, tasked with protecting catering trucks. Masked insurgents ambushed them using rocket-propelled-grenades and AK-47 rifles and dragged their bodies through the streets. Reuters journalist Michael Georgy arrived in an hour later. The scene was quite gruesome. There were bodies that were being burned. Other people stepping on the heads of these corpses, young and old, and I remember in the middle of this I was taking notes trying to understand what was going on, when a boy of about nine years old came up to me and he said, 'We took the others, burnt them and hung them on a bridge, would you like to see them?' He seemed to me to be, in my mind, how I remember it, a tour guide of death. The Falluja ambush would prove a defining moment in the war. Far from being "mission accomplished", as Bush had declared less than a year earlier, the conflict had only just begun. In the battle of Iraq, the Unites States and our allies have prevailed. The incident of Falluja was a year after George Bush, out of an aircraft carrier and said 'mission accomplished' to the applause of soldiers. There was nothing more far from the truth. You know, that was a start of absolute hell in Iraq. In March 2003, US-led forces invaded Iraq, vowing to end the dictatorial rule of President Saddam Hussein and destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were ever found. The city of Falluja, some 30 miles west of Baghdad, was part of the Sunni Triangle, a central region of mainly Sunni Muslims that had been the powerbase of Saddam Hussein. Saddam gained a lot of support in places like Falluja by giving them jobs in the army, jobs in the military, businesses. So, when the Americans took over, and there was clear that this was going to change, the Shi'ite will now become the dominant sect, resentment began then. Anger had started brewing soon after the invasion began. Any euphoria that accompanied the toppling of Saddam Hussein quickly gave way to fear about sectarian rivalries that Saddam had ruthlessly repressed and to fury at the mismanagement of US occupation. The attack on Blackwater security contractors triggered two US military offensives in Falluja, in which the city was besieged, surrounded and pounded. That heralded not just more attacks on American troops but a broad insurgency that swelled the ranks first of Al Qaeda and then the Islamic State, miring Iraq in conflict and chaos. I often think of that young boy and the violence that day. It was very clear that this region, there is no way that it will be able to stabilize any time soon. When US combat troops pulled out of Iraq in 2011, the violence did not end. Within weeks, the US had disbanded Iraq's army and left 400,000 soldiers without jobs. Violence spiraled out across the country in the months and years that followed, often pitting the minority Sunnis against the majority Shi'ites. Car and truck bombs, improvised explosive devices, suicide bombers, beheadings, sectarian death squads, and torture chambers pushed the death toll of Iraqis and others ever higher. What was supposed to be a short military engagement in Iraq ended up being an 8-year war that claimed the lives of more than 4,000 American soldiers, hundreds of foreign troops, and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. For Falluja residents, like tribal Sheikh Salman al-Falahi, the scars still run deep. From the 2003 US-led invasion to Al Qaeda's takeover of the city in 2006 to its domination by Islamic State in 2014. When people from Falluja were fired at, killed, and injured, what did America and its allies do? Did they apologize? Did they say they were sorry? Did they take their soldiers and leave? No, they were even more dedicated. They sent us their secret services to the city. I was impacted psychologically. Cars came and they intercepted them in the street and killed them. Once they killed them, they threw them out in the streets. The people were boiling. So, what did they do? They dragged them and hanged them there. The US invasion was supposed to deliver stability and democracy. And instead, it was mass chaos for years, and violence, and sectarianism, and civil war. So, it is very, very sad memories