RAMADI, Iraq — The Iraqi military force formed by the Marines in a last-ditch effort to pacify the restive city of Fallouja has been disbanded in the face of continuing violence, assaults on government security forces and evidence that some members have been working openly with insurgents.
The dissolution of the Fallouja Brigade, created during the spring to avoid an all-out assault on the insurgent hotbed, marked a significant setback for the U.S. military. The Americans had hoped that the brigade, composed of former members of the Iraqi army and Saddam Hussein's special security forces, would work alongside the new Iraqi government and help restore order.
"The Fallouja Brigade is done, over," said Marine Col. Jerry L. Durrant, who oversees the 1st Marine Expeditionary Unit's involvement with Iraqi security forces. "The whole Fallouja Brigade thing was a fiasco. Initially it worked out OK, but it wasn't a good idea for very long."
Durrant did not say what the Marines might do next, but U.S. warplanes Friday bombed Fallouja for the fourth consecutive day and the air campaign was expected to continue and possibly intensify. Friday's air attack targeted earth-moving equipment being used by insurgents to build fighting positions, a Marine spokesman said.
With the demise of the Fallouja Brigade -- agreed to by the interim Iraqi government and the Marines -- the Marines are left with no attractive options for rooting out Fallouja's entrenched insurgency. The rebel movement has spread to surrounding villages and left the interim Iraqi government without control of one of the nation's largest cities west of Baghdad. Marines remain based as close as two miles from Fallouja, but the insurgents -- local and foreign fighters backed by firebrand Sunni Muslim clerics -- have had several months to dig in and make it more difficult for American troops or Iraqi government forces to launch a ground attack.
The development comes as U.S. forces try to reestablish Iraqi government control in several insurgent bastions, including Samarra, to the north of Baghdad, just months before scheduled national elections.
Gen. Abdullah Hamid Wael, the brigade's latest leader, announced the dissolution Thursday night on instructions from the Defense Ministry.
Speaking at an Iraqi military base west of Fallouja, Wael read from a ministry statement that said "any member of the brigade can, as an individual, join the Iraqi national guard or the Iraqi police."
