CAMP FALLOUJA, Iraq — The outgoing Marine commander of turbulent western Iraq, reflecting Sunday on the fall of Fallouja to insurgent forces, said officers on the ground had disagreed with two key decisions: storming the city in April after the slayings of four U.S. contractors and then pulling back after three days of fierce fighting.
Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, who stepped down Sunday to become deputy director of operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provided insight into the controversial U.S. moves in the spring that solidified Fallouja's position as a haven for insurgents and a "no-go" zone for U.S. troops.
What to do about Fallouja is one of the thorniest questions the interim Iraqi government and its U.S.-led allies face.
The order to attack Fallouja and the subsequent command to halt came down the chain of command from Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top officer on the ground at the time, Conway said. The Marines expressed objections but proceeded.
The Marines, who had just taken over responsibility for Fallouja from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, wanted time to work on a strategy they had tried elsewhere, conducting combat operations while reaching out to citizens through development projects and other incentives. They never got the chance.
"We follow our orders. We had our say," Conway said in an interview with several reporters on this sprawling base three miles east of Fallouja. "We understood the rationale, and we saluted smartly and went about the attack.
"We felt like ... we ought to probably let the situation settle before we appeared to be attacking out of revenge," Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said.
The general acknowledged that there was no guarantee that the Marines' strategy would have produced different results in Fallouja, a Sunni Muslim city that has been hostile to the U.S. military presence.
"Would our system have been better?" Conway said. "You'll never know for sure. But at the time we certainly thought so."
It was unclear how strenuously the Marines had argued their point of view. But the attack on Fallouja, which caused hundreds of Iraqi casualties, only exacerbated the hostility, the general said.
"When we got here, we were told by the 82nd that you can go into Fallouja, spend 45 minutes, no more," Conway said. "After the contractor incident, we were told that we had to attack Fallouja. I think we certainly increased the level of animosity that existed, and we're living with that."
