BAGHDAD — The United States' top military commanders converged here Sunday to craft a strategy for using the momentum from a seemingly successful anti-insurgent battle in Fallouja to pacify other embattled Iraqi cities, pressing toward a decisive "tipping point" in the war.
In an unusually high-profile mid-battle gathering, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived from Washington, and Central Command chief Gen. John P. Abizaid flew in from his regional headquarters in Qatar. They met with the top U.S. ground commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey, his Iraqi counterparts and the American generals in charge of Iraq's various regions.
Unlike Myers' occasional visits to troops in Iraq, the general planned this tour to discuss war strategy with senior commanders regarding the ongoing battle in Fallouja and the outbreaks of unrest in other areas, including Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul.
As many as 1,600 insurgents in Fallouja were killed so rapidly that the streets were littered with an "alarming" number of bodies, senior defense officials said, despite Muslim strictures that require burial within 24 hours.
The American commanders expect to use information gleaned from the dead and from interrogations of an estimated 1,000 captured rebels to find insurgent leaders -- possibly including the best-known guerrilla, Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi -- who the commanders said left Fallouja ahead of the last week's fighting.
"I think Fallouja will show us where the leadership is," Abizaid said. "I think there are quite a few people that are in our hands right now that will tell us an awful lot about their organization."
Yet uprisings in Mosul and elsewhere suggested that many insurgents had fled Fallouja to fight elsewhere.
"The insurgency is like water, and when you squeeze it, it kind of goes like water," Abizaid added.
The gathering, which commanders described as the result of visits independently scheduled before the latest confrontation in Fallouja, was marked by a renewed optimism among Pentagon strategists that they were making progress despite a recent rise in attacks by a stubborn insurgency.
"You never know how close you are to a tipping point," said a senior defense official involved in the talks, who requested anonymity.
