Saddam-Era General Denied Iraqi Force
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon’s top officer says a general who once headed Saddam Hussein’s infantry does not and probably will not command an Iraqi force that is replacing Marines at Fallujah.
Nevertheless, on the ground outside the violent city west of Baghdad, Marine commanders describe Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh as commander of the newly organized “Fallujah Brigade” and have given no indication they are losing confidence in him.
A U.S. military official in Baghdad said Monday that another Saddam Hussein-era military leader, Maj. Gen. Mohammed Latif, would likely take over security in Fallujah while Saleh would move into a subordinate position. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that news media were “very, very inaccurate” in identifying Saleh as commander of the Iraqi force that moved during the weekend into positions outside Fallujah. Marines previously held the positions as they enforced a 3-week-old siege.
Myers said officials in Baghdad were checking into Saleh’s background. Friends and relatives have said he served during the 1980s in deposed Iraqi President Saddam’s Republican Guard. Later, they said, he headed Saddam’s infantry forces.
“There are people that know his record, know what he’s done in the previous Saddam Hussein regime,” Myers told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“They’re going to have to find an appropriate role, if a role at all, for him,” he said.
On “Fox News Sunday,” Myers said Saleh “has not been vetted yet and probably won’t be the one in command.”
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan agreed that “those who’ve committed crimes have no business getting involved” in the Iraqi people’s security forces.
But “you had people in the army – this was a large army, I don’t think all of them committed atrocities, but most of the leadership is gone,” Annan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”"But those who are clean, I think, can be used.”
On Sunday, Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne told reporters near Fallujah that Saleh had opposed Saddam’s regime and paid a “steep personal price.”
Byrne and his colleagues appeared to have accepted Saleh because he offered the best alternative to bloody fighting that could have produced casualty rates politically untenable both in Iraq and the United States.
The Marines backed off their threatening posture around Fallujah, inhabited by adherents of Saddam’s Sunni branch of Islam, as elements of Saleh’s brigade replaced them Saturday. In the city, crowds waved Iraqi flags, cheered and celebrated, many flashing “V” for victory signs.
Whatever the disposition of Saleh, Myers said, “We want Iraqis to do this work, and this is a microcosm of what we want to happen all over Iraq.”
He said the original objectives in Fallujah remained:
-”Deal with the extremists, the foreign fighters.”
-”Get rid of the heavy weapons out of Fallujah.”
-”Find the folks who perpetrated the Blackwater atrocities.”
The siege began after four civilian security personnel from the North Carolina-based Blackwater Security Consulting were attacked, killed and burned and mutilated.
“The reports that the Marines have pulled back, not true. The Marines are still where they’ve been,” Myers said. “The Marines are prepared to follow through on this action if they have to.”
But, he said, “We think this is far preferable than the U.S. going in there in a very major combat operation to achieve those objectives. If we can do it with Iraqis, that is preferable.”
Arizona Sen. John McCain, second-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, found considerable fault with the outcome so far in Fallujah. McCain, a naval aviator in the Vietnam War who spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war, said the U.S. military has made too many threats without following through.
“The perception right now is that we are not acting in a decisive fashion and there’s no greater mistake you can make in the conduct of warfare,” McCain said on ABC’s “This Week.”