The US assault on Fallujah in 2004 was one of the US’s worst war crimes in Iraq. Angus Dermody explains how the US set out to crush resistance to foreign occupation

Twenty years ago US troops in Iraq launched the first of two bloody assaults on the city of Fallujah.

While the entirety of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq was criminal, the desolation of Fallujah in 2004 should stand as a reminder of the bloody nature of US power.

Fallujah, a city with a population of 300,000 sixty kilometres west of Iraq’s capital Baghdad, had become a symbol of the Sunni insurgency that took root in Iraq after the US invasion in March 2003.

On the evening of 28 April 2003 hundreds of Iraqi civilians assembled at a school housing US troops in Fallujah to demand that the troops withdraw.

The soldiers opened fire on the crowd, killing 17 civilians and wounding more than 70.

Despite US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s belief that coalition forces would be “greeted as liberators” by the people of Iraq, the summer that followed saw a significant increase in attacks on Western troops.

The motivations of the Iraqi insurgents were varied, but they were united in their opposition to the US. Many would have remembered the horrors of the US’s earlier war on Iraq in 1990-91.

Fallujah had been bombed in 1991 by coalition forces who struck its largest market, killing up to 150 civilians. Over the next decade the US bombed Iraq hundreds of times, imposing brutal sanctions that caused malnutrition and denied the population basic medicines.

Many more would have been compelled to resist by the immediate reality of the invasion and occupation.

The US occupiers allowed Iraq to descend into lawlessness, with widespread looting of government ministries, schools and hospitals.

They did little to reconstruct basic infrastructure, with the country left in ruins and unemployment rampant.

The revelation in April 2004 of the US’s horrific abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison discredited the occupation and radicalised a generation.

Iraq also had a proud tradition of nationalist revolts against British rule. Sunni and Shia Muslims united in revolt in 1920 against the plan to establish direct British control over Iraq.

This was followed by further revolts against the British-installed King that led to his toppling in 1958.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq was never about getting rid of Saddam Hussein and introducing democracy to Iraq, it was about US control of oil.

Iraqis were opposed to the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, but also to the US occupation that followed. As is the case in Palestine right now, Iraqis had a right to resist the invasion and occupation of their country.

Battle of Fallujah

A turning point came on 31 March 2004 when insurgents in Fallujah ambushed and killed four private military contractors from the American mercenary company Blackwater. Images of the mutilated bodies of the Blackwater contractors were broadcast around the world.

The response from the US was immediate. The next day the US’s deputy director of operations in Iraq, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, promised to “pacify that city”.

Operation Vigilant Resolve, as the assault on Fallujah was officially referred to, began on 4 April, when 2000 American troops surrounded and cordoned off the city.

Civilians were prevented from leaving, airstrikes levelled homes and mosques, and the two main hospitals were closed. Hundreds of civilians would be killed within the first week. One woman told the media that, “we knew we would be wiped off the Earth”.

As the Marines advanced further into Fallujah they were met with fierce resistance.

The horrific scenes rallied both the Sunni and Shia resistance throughout Iraq. Politicians including British PM Tony Blair, facing pressure at home, expressed their concern about the radicalising potential of the assault.

Sunni leaders on the occupation’s Iraqi Governing Council threatened to resign in protest.

Just six days into the offensive, on 9 April, US Central Command ordered the Marines to suspend all offensive operations in Fallujah. The fighting continued until 30 April, with the city still under the control of the insurgency.

At least 800 Iraqis were killed during the First Battle of Fallujah, approximately 600 of them civilians. Hundreds had to be buried in the former football field of the Fallujah Sports Club because Marines had occupied the main cemetery.

The assault lasted less than a month and ended in embarrassment for the US forces.

When they attempted to send the 2nd Battalion of the newly-formed Iraqi Civil Defence Corps to Fallujah they refused to go, saying that they had not signed up to kill other Iraqis. Part of the 36th Battalion mutinied after fighting in Fallujah for 11 days.

On 1 May the Marines withdrew from Fallujah and turned over operations to the Fallujah Brigade, a newly created unit made up of former Iraqi military personnel. They would eventually disband and surrender the weapons the US had provided them to the insurgency.

Bloodiest battle

The Second Battle of Fallujah, Operation Phantom Fury, was the single bloodiest battle of the Iraq War. After the withdrawal of the Marines in May, Fallujah was continuously bombed by the US and the number of insurgents there doubled.

On 7 November 2004, 10,500 US troops, 850 British troops, and 2000 Iraqi national guards launched a ground invasion of Fallujah in an attempt to drive out the insurgency and establish the Iraqi Interim Government’s control of the city following the Coalition’s transfer of power in June.

Before the assault was launched many civilians fled the city, but 30-50,000 civilians still remained. Men aged 15 to 50 were prevented from entering or leaving, warned by US forces that “if they do, they will become a target”.

US forces went from house to house killing Iraqis in their own homes where their bodies were left to rot. US snipers positioned on roofs gunned down anyone who wandered into the street. Troops were caught on camera executing wounded and unarmed insurgents.

One of the first targets of the assault was the Fallujah General Hospital, believed by occupation forces to be a propaganda centre due to the high number of reports of civilian casualties coming from the hospital.

The hospital was seized and health workers were prevented from leaving to tend to the wounded in other areas of the city, where the few remaining medical clinics had been bombed.

An aid convoy from the Iraqi Red Crescent was denied entry into Fallujah because the US military deemed that there was no need for it. The UN special rapporteur declared that the occupation forces were using “hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population”.

The US launched white phosphorus munitions into the city during the assault; a chemical weapon which melts the flesh down to the bone.

Despite clear evidence of its use, military officials denied it until 2005 when an official military publication described how it proved in Fallujah to be “an effective and versatile munition” and a “potent psychological weapon”.

Depleted uranium munitions were used in an attempt to clear bunkers, contaminating drinking water, food and soil. In total 1200 tonnes of depleted uranium were used on Iraq by the US following their invasion in 2003.

One eyewitness described a sickening incident where the Iraqi National Guard directed families to leave their homes bearing white flags and gather at a mosque, only for US troops to open fire from the nearby rooftops, killing many of them.

At least 800 civilians and up to 2000 insurgents were killed by the time the occupation forces withdrew from Fallujah on 23 December 2004.

When Doctor Salam Ismael visited the city the following month, he reported that, “A wave of hate had wiped out two-thirds of the town… in most of the houses, the bodies were of civilians.

“It became clear to us that we were witnessing the aftermath of a massacre, the cold-blooded butchery of helpless and defenceless civilians.”

City of ghosts

Fallujah had been referred to as the city of mosques. After 2004 it became a city of ghosts. Two thirds of Fallujah was made uninhabitable; as many as 36,000 of the city’s 50,000 homes were destroyed.

Entire neighbourhoods were bulldozed to cover up the crimes committed by the occupation forces. In some areas US forces were reported to be removing the soil and hosing down the streets to hide the use of chemical weapons.

While the US and British governments denied that they used depleted uranium, or that it could cause long-term health risks, its impact was clear.

In the years that followed, 14.7 per cent of all babies born in Fallujah had birth defects and the rate of leukaemia increased by 2200 per cent, significantly higher than the worst of the lasting effects in Hiroshima.

Babies were born with missing limbs, multiple heads and heart defects.

Nobody responsible for the crimes committed in Fallujah has been brought to justice.

Australia was directly implicated, with Australian general Jim Molan serving as Chief of Operations for the coalition forces in Iraq, and responsible for planning the Second Battle of Fallujah and the war crimes that resulted.

As a reward for his role in the butchery of Fallujah, he received the Distinguished Service Cross and was hand-picked by former PM Scott Morrison to serve as a Liberal senator in 2017.

The armed resistance movement that grew out of the despair of the occupation and the assaults on Fallujah humiliated the West.

But it was unable to grow into a unified national movement, and the West responded by creating divisions between Sunni and Shia Muslims to stoke sectarianism.

A unified movement from below could have driven the US out of Iraq and put a stop to the horrors of the occupation.

The horrific scenes that played out in Fallujah in 2004 are being repeated right now in Gaza, with the same forces backing it. Stopping the slaughter for good means building the sort of fight that can smash the imperialist system.

The post Fallujah—how the US murdered a city first appeared on Solidarity Online.

“35,000 billion euros lying dormant today in European bank accounts… is no longer acceptable” – Bruno le Maire, who said he was going to collapse Russian economy, now wants the money of millions of EU citizens

Bruno le Maire’s ‘rant’

Bruno le Maire, arch-centrist French president Emmanuel Macron’s economy and finance minister, said in 2022 that France and the EU was going to collapse the Russian economy. Now, with Russia’s economy outperforming both the EU and US, le Maire has decided that the EU doesn’t have enough cash reserves and that he wants to raid the bank accounts of European citizens to get access to what he says is 35 trillion euros lying ‘dormant’.

And he wants them, at least in part, to fund war-readiness.

As French observer Arnaud Bertrand has pointed out, le Maire wants to “mobilize all the savings of Europeans” by taking their savings into a ‘European savings product’ – but while le Maire says that it will be ‘voluntary’ for EU nations to enter the scheme, there is no mention of ordinary people having the same freedom of choice if their country does enter it. In a video on the topic, le Maire says:

I am at the Council of Ministers of Finance in Ghent, Belgium, and I just raised a fuss because the capital markets union is not progressing. What is the capital markets union? It’s the ability to mobilize all of Europeans’ savings – 35,000 billion euros – to finance the climate transition, fund our defence efforts, and invest in artificial intelligence.

Since things aren’t moving forward with all 27 members, I proposed that we move forward on a voluntary basis with a small number of member states to propose a European savings product in the coming months, to propose European supervision of capital markets to ensure that regulation works well, and therefore to raise several tens of billions of euros to finance our growth and prosperity.

Europe cannot economically weaken as it has been doing for several months because it does not have sufficient financial reserves. Europe cannot miss the climate turning point because it does not have sufficient financial reserves. Europe cannot miss the artificial intelligence turning point because it is unable to agree on this capital markets union and make Europeans’ savings work.

35,000 billion euros lying dormant today in European bank accounts instead of fostering Europe’s prosperity tomorrow, instead of financing artificial intelligence, instead of financing the climate transition, is no longer acceptable. That’s the gist of my rant this morning in Ghent.

Deducing, probably correctly, that ‘defence’ really means the Ukrainian military, Betrand called le Maire’s plan:

immensely ironical that mister “I’ll collapse Russia’s economy” comes back to us 2 years afterwards, telling us “Europe cannot economically weaken as it has been doing for several months”, we need to take your savings… When Russia’s economy, far from collapsing, has been growing faster than all European countries. All this in part to “fund our defense efforts”, likely a code for “send it to Ukraine”, the most corrupt country on the continent currently fighting an endless money pit war that it has no chance of winning. Pure madness.

Europe and NATO seem increasingly determined to have war, with Sweden reintroducing conscription, other countries discussing it, the UK and EU banging the drum about Russia, whitewashing Ukrainian nazis and misrepresenting military goals, and many of them seemingly ready to conscript the life savings of civilians in order to fund endless conflict.

If only the same resolve was directed toward the actions needed to stop the actual genocidal war being perpetrated by Israel on the civilians of Gaza as there is to fanning the flames of war in Europe.

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In Reconciliation by Stealth: How People Talk about War Crimes, Denisa Kostovicova considers how best to achieve reconciliation in post-conflict societies, focusing on case studies from the Balkan region. Arguing for a process-oriented, dialogic and empathetic approach, Kostovicova reimagines conventional transitional justice mechanisms, writes Ajla Henic.

Reconciliation by Stealth: How People Talk about War Crimes. Denisa Kostovicova. Cornell University Press. 2023.

As Kalyvas suggests in The Logic of Violence in Civil War, violence is better understood as a process than a discrete act; it follows that reconceptualising reconciliation as a process rather than an ultimate objective is vital to our understanding of post-conflict dynamics. In order to be meaningful, transitional justice mechanisms aimed at achieving recognition and reconciliation must consider this ongoing process comprehensively, as Denisa Kostovicova shows in Reconciliation by Stealth: How People Talk about War Crimes.

Kostovicova, an outstanding scholar in post-conflict reconstruction and post-conflict justice processes in the Balkans, raises questions and reflections regarding societies navigating the post-conflict transformation. In conflicts characterised by identity aspects, violence often serves to further solidify these identities, perpetuating an ethnonationalist understanding of post-conflict society. The prevalence of polarisation, a stark reality in societies institutionally divided by peace treaties, further complicates the journey towards reconciliation.

Kostovicova introduces ‘reconciliation by stealth’, an emancipatory concept within transitional justice processes that foregrounds the necessity for discursive solidarity. By analysing how people talk about war crimes, we can subtly advance the idea of reconciliation as a process.

Kostovicova introduces “reconciliation by stealth”, an emancipatory concept within transitional justice processes that foregrounds the necessity for discursive solidarity. By analysing how people talk about war crimes, we can subtly advance the idea of reconciliation as a process. The author is acutely aware of the various pejorative interpretations of this complex concept, ranging from moral relativism to the potential belittlement of suffering, foreign imposition, instrumentalised usage by local authors, and scholarly scepticism (126, 127). However, the author convincingly contends that truth commissions in the Balkans have failed in their purposes, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia could not function as a post-justice reconciliation mechanism, but rather as a criminal justice-seeking body with little influence on ethno-nationalist politicians.

Contrastingly,  the RECOM Reconciliation Network – an initiative established in 2008 – which Kostovicova examines, introduced a consultation mechanism in transitional justice. Forming a coalition, RECOM assembled approximately 2,000 human rights groups, including victims themselves, and introduced a victim-centric, fact-based, and regionally focused approach to the human rights violations perpetrated during the Balkan wars (24,25). Over 6,000 individuals from various ethnic backgrounds who were involved in the conflicts took part in the RECOM consultation process from 2006 to 2011. Herein lies the strength of Kostovicova’s work – the operationalisation of transitional justice and reconciliation, drawing from empirical insights, and employing mixed-methods approaches to understand the potential of deliberation in divided societies.

The book is grounded in a strong theoretical framework that aligns with the empirical chapters. By operationalising the concept of “deliberative democracy” and drawing on Habermas’s theory of communicative actions and Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition, Kostovicova extends a discourse-based approach to understanding solidarity and recognition in interethnic interactions within a transitional justice framework. Chapter Two focuses on the normative qualities required to deal with mistrust and polarisation in divided and post-conflict societies, as these factors could hinder “the development of an inclusive public sphere” (36). The deliberative process, even without arriving at a final decision and without the necessity for decision-making, has the potential to restore interethnic relationships (37).

Beyond examining how people discuss war crimes, the book considers how individuals express their ethnic identities in the process of deliberation. The role of identity becomes significant in addressing the legacies of violence.

Kostovicova’s theoretical advancements centre around examining the influence of ethnic identities during the process of deliberation (39). Drawing on the concept of identity from contact theory, she demonstrates a profound understanding of the region under study, enabling the exploration of ethnic division lines through the adaptation of a social interactional perspective on identity. This move aims to leave aside an essentialist and deterministic understanding of identity common in scholarly discourse. Beyond examining how people discuss war crimes, the book considers how individuals express their ethnic identities in the process of deliberation. The role of identity becomes significant in addressing the legacies of violence (49). Given that solely focusing on civic identities may not fully capture the dynamics of the (post) conflict, and recognising that ethnic identities are post-war constructs solidified by the violence, the analytical task is to accommodate this tension.

Contrary to expectations, Kostovicova finds that ethnically mixed consultations exhibit higher deliberative quality than ethnically homogeneous ones.

Thus, the research presents the factors that predict the high quality of deliberation in transitional justice consultation, such as ethnic diversity, gender, polarisation or subjectivity in rational justifications, amongst others. The quality of deliberation, while simultaneously identifying the legacies of violence, shows that identity matters during deliberation. To measure deliberation, the study employs the Discourse Quality Index adapted for transitional justice as the dependent variable;  and two independent variables are developed to measure identity in discourse: first, subjectivity in rational justification, and second, storytelling positionality (78).  Contrary to expectations, Kostovicova finds that ethnically mixed consultations exhibit higher deliberative quality than ethnically homogeneous ones. The findings challenge the notion that in a divided society, approaches should centre on a nonethnic discourse; it also underlines the possibility for victims – and survivors – to express their feelings of justice in post-conflict settings, launching a critique on the “monopolisation” of victims’ agency (83,84).

Kostovicova demonstrates that deliberation in divided societies encourages questioning the hegemony of ethnocentric collective identification, which strengthens a collective narrative of victimhood.

Chapter Five discusses the empirical approach of interactivity as an attribute of the deliberative process. Operationalising interactivity allows us to move beyond post-conflict power-sharing division. Due to the macro-level divisions, we expect a pattern of isolation or confinement of identity, labelled in the book as “ethnic enclavisation” (99). However, contrary again to expectations, agreement and respect along inter-ethnic lines in addressing the legacies of war crimes are prevalent. She demonstrates that deliberation in divided societies encourages questioning the hegemony of ethnocentric collective identification, which strengthens a collective narrative of victimhood (106). This means that deliberation advances the unlinking or disconnection between collective identities, contributing to the achievement of individuality for oneself and seeing the ‘other’ separated from their group.

Addressing the legacies of war is not only about engaging with former adversaries but also about understanding one’s own multi-layered identity during and after conflict.

Kostovicova’s work finds that deliberation also occurred along intra-group lines. This shows that addressing the legacies of war is not only about engaging with former adversaries but also about understanding one’s own multi-layered identity during and after conflict. This analysis brings clarity to the insufficiently understood causes and dynamics of violence and their relationship with identity, and also on the poorly comprehended legacies of mass violence and their connection with identity, self-categorisation, and victimhood.

Balkan scholars face the enormous challenge of scrutinising identity and ethnicity, aware of their intricate constructions, the influence of violence in shaping them, and the role of identity politics in their perpetuation. They must also construct an analysis that avoids replicating the conflict solely as ethnic while considering other causes of violence and its legacies, – or, better said, how to study identities in cases where, according to Brass as cited in Fearon and Laitin, violence is “socially constructed as ethnic.” With this, I aim to highlight literature (Vukosic and Kalyvas, cited in Malesevic, for example) on violence where communal  violence, even if described as such, on the ground or locally, can have other motivations, such as economic ones..

The book develops a theory centred on a “discursive perspective on solidarity in interethnic interactions, a theory that places emphasis on empathy and the acknowledgement of the “ethnic Other” with the aim of bridging gaps between deliberators (46). I’m uncertain whether this approach presents a rigid understanding of identity if the source of agency or deliberation specific to individuals (victims or survivors) is linked with abstract entities like ethnic or political groups, an analysis that Balcells advanced in the micro-level explanations of the occurrence of violence. A closer and more extended theoretical examination of intra-ethnic dynamics would have enriched the analysis, further challenging collective notions of identity and victimhood in post-conflict societies.

Max Berghoz states that, “Perpetrators may imprint ethnicity onto victims through acts of violence; victims, in turn, may internalize this externally imposed ethnic categorization and, through acts of revenge, imprint ethnicity onto the initial perpetrators and those associated with them.” This raises a crucial question: when we study victims, are we truly delving into their sense of identity? This question does not aim to undermine the agency of victims but rather emphasises the need for researchers to maintain a critical distance. As Kostovicova notes, mentioning Aida Hozic, delving into the understanding and interpretation of violence in post-conflict polities “can serve the interests of those who committed genocide” (33). Hence, it is relevant to point out that this tension regarding how we analyse identity through the victim’s perspective remains unresolved.

[The book] underscores the notion that irrespective of the duration, sustained dialogue paves the path towards reconciliation.

The book is a humane work that positions empathy and acknowledgement as epistemological guidance. Kostovicova’s endeavour to dissect and operationalise the neglected concept of reconciliation is a brave one. Her work is an essential advancement of reconciliation and can be used within academia without compromising the integrity of the Balkan region’s history. It underscores the notion that irrespective of the duration, sustained dialogue paves the path towards reconciliation.

This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Image credit: fizkes on Shutterstock

Ria Novosti and others say ‘informed source’ close to events insists Britain pressured Ukrainian military to fire missile without checking identity of aircraft

Russian news agencies have claimed that an ‘informed source familiar with the situation’ has told it that pressure from UK military advisers in Kiev was responsible for the 24 January Ukrainian missile that brought down a Russian IL-76 aircraft carrying sixty-five Ukrainian prisoners to a prisoner exchange, along with three Russian officers and six crew members. All were killed.

Ria says that its source – it does not state whether it is a Russian, Ukrainian or British whistleblower – told it that:

The attack on the Il-76 was carried out under pressure from British advisers without the consent of the air defense headquarters in Kyiv and additional verification of information about the movement of aircraft over the Belgorod region.

Russia has claimed that US MIM-104A ‘Patriot’ missiles caused the crash.

US magazine Newsweek has carried the story, but the UK ‘mainstream’ media have ignored it, as they did Seymour Hersh’s investigation last year that concluded that the US was behind the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines that triggered an energy crisis in the UK and Europe.

Calls have been made for an international investigation, but so far nothing has been announced, at least publicly.

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