NEAR FALLOUJA, Iraq — Marines just outside the insurgent stronghold of Fallouja were making final preparations Friday for a large-scale offensive that U.S. commanders and diplomats on the ground in Baghdad now describe as all but inevitable.
"We are gearing up to do an operation," said Brig. Gen. Dennis J. Hejlik, deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. Speaking to reporters at a base near Fallouja, Hejlik said: "If we're told to go, we're going to go. And when we go ... it's going to be decisive, and we're going to go in there, and we're going to whack 'em."
Officials of the Iraqi interim government have held out hope that their long-deadlocked talks with representatives from Fallouja will yield results and head off the prospective assault. But Marine commanders who would mount the operation expressed little confidence in the talks. The negotiations "are a ruse ... to stall for time," Marine Col. Michael Shupp told reporters gathered here in anticipation of the offensive.
Fallouja representatives have said they will lay down their arms only if U.S. troops agree to stay out of the troubled city west of Baghdad -- a demand that the U.S.-backed Iraqi interim government has rejected.
Hejlik said that the Marines were awaiting word from interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on when to launch the attack. The scope and timing remained secret, but it was widely believed that no attack would come before the U.S. presidential election Tuesday.
U.S. officials view the impending offensive as key to reasserting control over the country's Sunni Muslim heartland in preparation for landmark Iraqi national elections scheduled for January. They cite recent military successes in reversing rebel gains in other Iraqi cities and say they cannot let Fallouja stand as an inspiration and sanctuary for Sunni insurgents who fan out across the country.
"If you decide to fight for Fallouja you have to fight for it early enough so that you can get past the battle and have registration, reconstruction [and] elections," said a senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad.
U.S. officials in Baghdad confirmed that an assault on the well-entrenched guerrillas of Fallouja was imminent.
"I think we're going to have to clear those guys out," a senior U.S. commander in Baghdad said this week. He called Fallouja "the Dodge City of Iraq."
