In November 2004 the US - with British support - launched a massive assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah. The scale of the attack - and its effect on civilians - was unprecedented in the bloody history of the invasion and occupation, yet the crimes committed in Fallujah received little attention here and have quickly been forgotten. One year on, we look back at the events leading up to the assault, the attack itself, and how the lack of effective global protest led to many other towns and cities in Iraq facing similar treatment.

Introduction
Briefing by Milan Rai Remember Fallujah: the truth about the occupation
The "model city"
Torture, abuse and imprisonment
Eyewitness Fallujah
After Fallujah: the ongoing attacks on Iraq's cities
War crimes in Fallujah

INTRODUCTION
Remember Fallujah...

On 8 November 2004, after more than two months of aerial attacks, the US began its second major assault on Fallujah - originally codenamed “Thanksgiving Massacre” - devastating the city and killing hundreds of civilians. UK forces played an active support role, with hundreds of troops redeployed from Southern Iraq to form part of a “ring of steel” around Fallujah.

The city was placed ‘under a strict night-time shoot-to-kill curfew’ with ‘anyone spotted in the soldiers’ night vision sights … shot’ (Times, 12 Nov 04); male refugees were prevented from leaving the combat zone; a health centre was bombed killing 60 patients and support staff; and refugees from the city claimed that ‘a large number of people, including children, were killed by American snipers’ and that the US had used cluster bombs and phosphorus weapons in the offensive.

Today, an estimated 100,000 Iraqis who fled the attack have yet to return - and those who have have been subject to a draconian regime of checkpoints, curfews and iris scans. Furthermore, recent US military offensives in Ramadi, Baghdadi, Hit, Haditha, Mosul, Qaim, Tal Afar and elsewhere, have many more civilians and created thousands more refugees.

This November will see a series of actions and events taking place around the country to mark the anniversary of last year’s assault, and to demand justice and compensation for the victims and an end to the occupation.

Read the briefing Remember Fallujah: the truth about the occupation by Milan Rai

The "model city"

More than 200,000 Iraqis fled the November 2004 assault on Fallujah, many of them forced to struggle to find food, shelter and medical provision in near-freezing temperatures. As of 8 August over a third of the city's 250,000 residents had yet to return (Los Angeles Times).
Not long after the assault 'US commanders and Iraqi leaders … declared their intention to make Fallujah a "model city"' (Boston Globe, 5 Dec). A 6pm curfew was instituted, graffiti and public gatherings made illegal, cars and visitors banned, and all men aged 15 to 55 required to carry special identification cards.

At one point the US even floated the idea of compelling Fallujah's men to join "work battalions" to clear rubble in the devastated city (the US State Department estimates that 25% of Fallujah's housing was rendered uninhabitable during the attack, a further 25% was severely damaged and 50% suffered light to moderate damage - Financial Times, 14 April).

The first returnees found '[l]akes of sewage in the streets. The smell of corpses inside charred buildings. No water and electricity [and] [l]ong waits and thorough searches by US troops at checkpoints.' (Los Angeles Times, 30 Dec).
As of this April US forces were 'allowing in only documented residents, contractors, government officials or allied military forces … pull[ing] aside men of military age for an iris scan and thumbprint (Washington Post, 19 April) and visiting US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick heard a 'torrent of complaints' from members of the city council, 'focusing on such issues as the slow pace of reconstruction aid [and] frequent intimidation of citizens by US soldiers' (Washington Post, 14 April).

Since then, Fallujah has largely dropped off the media's horizon. However one thing is clear: one year on, the people of Fallujah are still waiting for justice.

Torture, abuse and imprisonment

Much of the current US military strategy in Iraq - in which 'mass detentions and indiscriminate torture appear to be the main tools' (Financial Times, 29 June) - can be seen in microcosm in Fallujah.

For example, over 1450 people were detained during last November's assault on Fallujah (AP, 23 November 2004). Whilst at least 400 of these were released within a matter of weeks, those unfortunate enough to be transferred to the US-run prison Camp Bucca in southern Iraq face an average length of incarceration - usually without charge or trial - of a year (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 11 September). This despite the fact that the US commander who oversees Bucca estimates that one in four prisoners "perhaps were just snagged in a dragnet operation" or were victims of personal vendettas (at the end of June the US was holding over 10,000 Iraqis in detention).

Routine abuse
Meanwhile, three soldiers with the US Army's 82nd Airborne division have recently described how their battalion - which was deployed at Forward Operating Base Mercury, just outside Fallujah - 'routinely used physical abuse and mental torture [of detainees] as a means of intelligence gathering and for stress relief' (Human Rights Watch, 17 September).

The torture and abuse took place almost daily during the entirety of the division's deployment at the base from September 2003 to April 2004 and 'was systematic and … known at varying levels of command,' with military intelligence personnel 'direct[ing] and encouraging army personnel to subject prisoners to forced, repetitive exercise, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness, sleep deprivation for days on end, and exposure to extremes of heat and cold.'

Daily beatings were also incorporated in preparation for interrogations and broken bones occurred "every other week." "After Abu Ghraib things toned down," one of the soldiers explained. "It is still going on now the same way, I am sure. Maybe not as blatant but it is how we do things."

Eyewitness Fallujah

British activist Jo Wilding was in Fallujah during the April 2004 siege of the city. Here she describes her experience riding an ambulance in the city:

'We wash the blood off our hands and get in the ambulance. There are people trapped in the other hospital who need to go to Baghdad. Siren screaming, lights flashing, we huddle on the floor of the ambulance, passports and ID cards held out the windows. We pack it with people, one with his chest taped together and a drip, one on a stretcher, legs jerking violently so I have to hold them down as we wheel him out, lifting him over steps.
'The doctor rushes out to meet me: "Can you go to fetch a lady, she is pregnant and she is delivering the baby too soon?"

'Azzam is driving, Ahmed in the middle directing him and me by the window, the visible foreigner, the passport.

Something scatters across my hand, simultaneous with the crashing of a bullet through the ambulance, some plastic part dislodged, flying through the window.

'We stop, turn off the siren, keep the blue light flashing, wait, eyes on the silhouettes of men in US marine uniforms on the corners of the buildings. Several shots come. We duck, get as low as possible and I can see tiny red lights whipping past the window, past my head. Some, it's hard to tell, are hitting the ambulance. I start singing. What else do you do when someone's shooting at you? A tyre bursts with an enormous noise and a jerk of the vehicle.
'I'm outraged. We're trying to get to a woman who's giving birth without any medical attention, without electricity, in a city under siege, in a clearly marked ambulance, and you're shooting at us. How dare you?

See here for more.

After Fallujah:
the ongoing attacks on Iraq's cities

In many respects the first siege of Fallujah set the pattern for subsequent US military operations in Iraq - a pattern which persists to this day. The following is far-from-comprehensive sample of subsequent attacks:

19 May 2004: US forces attack the tiny village of Mukaradeeb, killing 42 people - all civilians - including 11 women and 14 children (Guardian, 25 May). US claims that they were targeting a "safe house" for foreign fighters are rapidly discredited.

August 2004: Hundreds of civilians are killed during a month-long US assault on Najaf.

28 August - 8 October: at least 82 people, including nine children, are killed in a series of airstrikes on Fallujah.

September / October 2004: US-led forces attack Samarra and Tal Afar. Water and electricity are cut in both cities. 150,000 residents flee Tal Afar and the first 70 dead brought to Samara General Hospital, include 18 women and 23 children. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumseld says, "What has to be done in [Iraq] is what basically was done in Samarra over the last 48 hours."

8 November 2004: US forces launch a massive assault on Fallujah, killing hundreds of civilians (see opposite).

February 2005: US-led forces attack Ramadi, Hit, Baghdadi and Haditha.

7 May 2005: US forces launch a massive assault on Qaim, killing scores of people, attacking the local hospital and forcing thousands to flee their homes.

June 2005: US forces attack Karabila and Qaim, killing at least 17 civilians. Iraq's deputy health minister warns of possible starvation among the 6,000 families who fled the assault.

August 2005: US-led forces attack Haditha, Haqlaniya and Barwana. One Haditha resident describes the bombs as 'falling like heavy rain' and claims to have witnessed marines kill two unarmed inhabitants. Forty civilians are killed in airstrikes in Husayba.

2 September 2005: US-led forces launch a massive assault on Tal Afar. The local hospital reports receiving cases of dead women and children. Tens of thousands of residents had fled the city in anticipation.

1 October 2005: 1,000 US troops backed by helicopters attack Sadah. Power and water are cut. Two families fleeing the fighting are shot dead, as is the driver of an ambulance called to the area.

16 October 2005: US airstrikes in western Iraq kill more than 70 people, including dozens of women and children, according to witnesses (Guardian, 18 Oct).

War crimes in Fallujah

April 2004
According to a detailed analysis of 300 contemporary news reports by Iraq Body Count (www.iraqbodycount.org) at least 572 of the roughly 800 reported deaths during the first US siege of Fallujah in April 2004 were civilians, with over 300 of these being women and children.

US forces committed major war crimes during the assault:
n Warplanes, fighter bombers, military helicopters and gunships were used to attack residential areas, killing many civilians. In one incident '16 children and eight women were reported to have been killed when US aircraft hit four houses' (Independent, 8 April).

• At least one [US] battalion had 'orders to shoot any male of military age on the streets after dark, armed or not' (New York Times, 14 April) and there were numerous press reports of US snipers firing on - and killing - unarmed civilians, including children.
• Several reports strongly suggested that US snipers targeted ambulances in Fallujah. Indeed, a UK national, Jo Wilding, was present in a clearly marked ambulance that she claims was shot at by US snipers.
• The city's main hospital was closed by marines and a sniper was placed on top of the hospital's water tower in violation of the Geneva Convention (Guardian, 24 April).
  

Once again US forces committed major war crimes:

• The city was placed 'under a strict night-time shoot-to-kill curfew' with 'anyone spotted in the soldiers' night vision sights…shot' (Times, 12 Nov 04)
• Male refugees were prevented from leaving the combat zone (AP, 13 Nov 04)
• US forces were filmed killing an unarmed, wounded Iraqi (Guardian, 16 Nov)
• US warplanes dropped 3 bombs on the Central Health Centre clinic, killing 35 patients (including 5 children under the age of ten) and 24 medical staff (The Nation, 13 Dec 04)
• Refugees from the city claimed that 'a large number of people, including children, were killed by American snipers' (Independent, 24 Nov 04).
• US forces used phosphorus weapons 'that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water' (Washington Post, 10 Nov 04).

"My son got shrapnel in his stomach when our house was hit at dawn, but we couldn't take him for treatment. We just bandaged his stomach and gave him water, but he was losing a lot of blood. He died this afternoon"
Fallujah resident
Mohammed Abboud, November 2004.

'Asked what he would tell Iraqis about televised images
"of Americans and coalition soldiers killing innocent civilians," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt,
the senior military spokesman in Iraq answered
"Change the channel."'
(New York Times, 12 April).