- There is a phrase American officers have started using
to describe the battered streets of Fallujah. They are calling it the
safest
place in Iraq.
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- Four months after the US military swept through the city
in the biggest urban offensive since the Vietnam war, the insurgents who
once controlled the city and used it as a springboard for violence
elsewhere
have gone. Attacks on American or Iraqi security forces are few.
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- Roughly a fifth of the population, about 50,000 people,
have returned to see if their houses were destroyed in the fighting.
-
- They are obliged to wait for hours at American
checkpoints
to be searched and frustrations are as high as the expectations that the
US military will rebuild their shattered city as effectively as they
levelled
large parts of it.
-
- On every street is the grim testimony of the insurgents'
demise: Piles of rubble and buildings riddled with bullet holes.
-
- The destruction left the city without power and water
for weeks, a ghost town of rotting corpses and sewage-filled streets.
Services
have returned only sporadically.
-
- "Basically, we emptied out the city and let the
people back in one by one," said Major Wade Weems, who commands one
of two marine reconstruction teams. "We've purified the town of every
insurgent element."
-
- Maj Weems's team makes its way around the city in Humvees
delivering school supplies and medical equipment, as well as handing out
sweets to children.
-
- The scenes are at times reminiscent of Iraq immediately
after the invasion, when the people eagerly awaited a huge reconstruction
process. That process never really began, in part because of the mounting
insurgency in places like Fallujah, which has come to stand for everything
that has gone wrong with the US-led occupation.
-
- "We've given ourselves another opportunity to make
things right," said Maj Weems. "We know how much is expected
of us."
-
- At stake, say some US officials, is more than just the
salvation of a city, but the rehabilitation of Iraq's rebellious Sunni
Muslim community, of which Fallujah is the keystone.
-
- Last month's elections gave a taste of what a Sunni city
freed of insurgent threats might be like, when a third of registered voters
in Fallujah cast their ballot, representing just less than half the
eligible
voters in the entire al-Anbar province.
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- "We need to turn a counter-insurgency victory into
a strategic success," said Kael Weston, a state department official
working as a liaison officer with US marines in the city.
-
- Marine commanders also talk optimistically about rolling
out the Fallujah model to other cities in Sunni tribal areas.
-
- But the first job of the US military is to convince
Fallujah's
battered residents they are here to help, and that progress will be
made.
-
- About £70 million has been earmarked for the new
work, although to date progress has been limited to repainting a handful
of schools and clinics lightly damaged in the fighting.
-
- The Iraqi government has also said it will take a leading
role in the reconstruction, and promised millions in compensation to people
who lost their homes.
-
- Like many residents, Raja Hussein, a teacher, was pleased
that US forces had rid the city of insurgents, so long as they helped
provide
her with basic services. "We have no electricity, no water,"
she said.
-
- Her school, which was bombed during the attack, and only
recently reopened, is lacking books and stationery, working toilets, and
glass in the windows.
-
- In her office, one US marine had daubed the graffiti:
"We came, we saw, we took over all. PS To help you."
-
- But some Fallujans remain angry at the scale of
destruction.
Many complain about the hour-long queues at checkpoints to enter the city,
where military age men must have their retinas scanned.
-
- "This city has become a military camp," said
one man as he watched a US military convoy, supported by Iraqi troops,
pass by.
-
- Residents describe themselves as victims caught between
the insurgents and the US troops. They are unimpressed with reconstruction
promises.
-
- "Since the liberation of Iraq we have seen nothing
useful. It's very hard to live here," said Mohsen Jassim, 36, an
employee
of Fallujah's electricity supplier.
-
- "We're burning firewood to keep warm. The ministries
are finished," he said. The Iraqi government has not paid out any
compensation money so far, although assessment teams have been processing
claims for weeks.
-
- They have also failed to deliver supplies to the city,
including books and desks.
-
- Dr Baha Ahmed Yassin, the education ministry's
representative
in Fallujah, said the supplies had difficulty passing marine checkpoints
on the outskirts.
-
- Marine commanders are meanwhile concerned that their
efforts are not being adequately supported by the Iraqi government.
-
- Col Mike Shupp, the marine commander in charge of
Fallujah,
said: "As long as I continue to keep insurgents out and curtail
attacks,
the people will be satisfied at what we're doing. The people all expect
the government to help them."
-
- His views were shared by Hashem Mahmud, a contractor
who employs 200 men in Fallujah repairing schools and clinics. He offered
a grim assessment of the city's future should the reconstruction process
fail to meet expectations.
-
- "The insurgents are waiting for the people to reach
a desperate point before moving back in," he said. "We've got
to get people employed otherwise they will be reached by the other side
and paid money to do something nasty."
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.
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- http://telegraph.co.uk
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