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INSIGHT

U.S. and Iraqi Forces Take Falluja

Aired November 16, 2004 - 23:00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JONATHAN MANN, CNN HOST: The house to house fight in Falluja. U.S. and Iraqi forces take back the insurgent-held city. What did they win there?
Hello and welcome.

There are hundreds of dead bodies scattered through the abandoned houses, streets and rubble of Falluja. In all, there are believed to be 1,200 insurgents killed there, six Iraqi soldiers and 38 Americans, numbers that suggest a one-sided but very bloody battle that is now almost over.

Monday, the Marines of India Company 3rd Battalion 5th Regiment were caught in a firefight for more than six hours. It was a fierce clash and the Marines took casualties. Lindsey Hilsum of Britain's Channel 4 was imbedded with them.

On our program today, the fight for Falluja.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LINDSEY HILSUM, CHANNEL 4 NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The last cigarette before heading out. Searching and attack, they call it.

The Marines move through the ruins of Falluja looking for any gunman who has not fled or been killed, the most desperate and determined.

Tanks rumbling. The Americans were in this neighborhood the day before, but maybe the insurgents crept back overnight.

The Marines have been told to comb the mosques for weapons and as they do the firing starts. It turns into a firefight. The armored vehicle arrives with more ammunition because the houses around the mosque are full of fighters.

A group of Marines is pinned down on a flat rooftop. We are filming from an armored vehicle on the street below.

The heavier weapons fire a barrage at the insurgents. They call it suppressive fire. A Marine has been injured and his colleagues need to administer first aid and get him out. A stretcher is brought. This is a series casualty and it may already be too late.

But the rest of the group now needs to get out too, under intense fire. This is the most dangerous engagement India Company has had in Falluja.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got a Medivac coming on.

HILSUM: We weren't allowed to film the casualties. This one was loaded into the Amtrak (ph) and taking away.

The fire team crosses the street. They're going to hit the insurgents with an antitank missile.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's going to happen, M16s, 240, we're going to pop up, we're going to do 5 seconds of suppression, all right? Slow the M16s like two bars (ph). That way (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is going to show me where the fire is coming from and I can look at the building, all right? It's you and you. Ready, set, go, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

(GUNFIRE)

HILSUM: The heavy fire keeps the insurgents' heads down. The tracer has shown the men with the missile, a target.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll use that, OK? We're aiming in that window, that window right there. It looks like a doorway. Go!

(GUNFIRE)

HILSUM: The back-blast of the missile engulfs everyone in dust. They call in an air strike and the troop must quickly leave the danger area.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). All right. Start with the guns. Guns are going first. Go, guns.

HILSUM: They rush down the stairs to find a new position.

Fearing the insurgents may still be active, they run down the street. The debris of the day's battle lies in their path, a rocket launcher, a flattened Kalashnikov.

From a safer rooftop we filmed tanks moving along the street, ready to fire a round into each house where there might still be resistance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's probably a good 20 or 30 down in that last corner, and they're pinched right now. The whole division has got them surrounded, and this is where they were. They've been using this mosque over here to treat their wounded, and inside that mosque it's all dirty. And this last strip of houses, down to our front, about 300 meters, just full of gunshot wounds and stuff, trying to get them treated, and they don't want to give up.

We tried talking to them with our interpreter, getting them to surrender and walk out on the street. They're telling us they would rather die than come out and surrender, so they're going to die.

HILSUM: The Marines begin to relax. The clash is nearing its end.

(on camera): They've made a tactical withdrawal to this rooftop here, waiting for air power to come in and bomb the remaining insurgents. They think that there is at least another half-dozen still in there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 5 seconds.

(EXPLOSION)

HILSUM (voice-over): Night is falling. As the Marines go on foot to see whether the combined power of all of their weaponry has destroyed their weaponry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Check out the body, sir.

HILSUM: In the wreckage of the houses along the street near the mosque, they find the bodies of 21 fighters. According to their documents, these five came from the neighboring time of Ramadi. Terrorists to the Americans, martyrs to those who support their cause.

The end of the Muslim fast of Ramadan is marked by the sickle moon. Americans control Falluja, the ruined city of mosques.

Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News, Falluja.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: In the course of the battle for Falluja, an incident which was marginal to the outcome but cost one man his life and may cost the United States some more of its credibility. The U.S. military is investigating a fatal shooting of an unarmed, wounded insurgent by an American marine.

By now, millions of people around the world have essentially been witnesses.

CNN's senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The video taken by an American television reporter indicates as many as four wounded people may have been shot to death in the mosque on Saturday. The reporter hears gunshots as he approaches the mosque.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you shoot them?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did they have any weapons on them?

MCINTYRE: As the reporter follows the Marines inside, he sees men he recognizes as insurgent fighters who were wounded and disarmed the day before, dying of what appears to be fresh wounds. Then he witnesses another shooting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's (expletive) faking he's dead!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, he's breathing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's faking he's (expletive) dead!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dead now.

MCINTYRE: Human rights groups that have reviewed the tape think it's a clear war crime.

STEVE CRAWSHAW, LONDON DIR., HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: What we're seeing here -- we can see it in the body language of the soldiers -- is they do not feel under threat and really every single soldier and every single commander, every soldier on the ground knows it's an absolute basic of warfare that when you have a wounded person who is not a threat to them, it is absolutely prohibited to further injure or to kill that person. It's a real basic of international law.

MCINTYRE: The investigation will look into all four deaths and the actions of all the marines involved.

LT. GEN. JOHN SATTLER, U.S. MARINES: Let me make it perfectly clear: we follow the law of armed conflict and we hold ourselves to a high standard of accountability.

MCINTYRE: The video does not answer all the key questions. The wounded had been left behind by other marines. Could they have gotten weapons or set booby traps? Did the marine know that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was there a reasonable apprehension of serious bodily injury or death on the part of the person who pulled the trigger here? And that would trump, in my opinion, any question of whether the person -- whether the deceased was a prisoner, was wounded or anything.

BRIG. GEN. JAMES MARKS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): A buddy the day before had been killed in a very similar incident where an insurgent who was playing dead had, in fact, been booby trapped and a number of Marines had been injured and wounded and one Marine was killed, so you keep all of that in context.

MCINTYRE (on camera): The Pentagon says if there is any evidence that U.S. troops have killed any enemy fighters wrongfully, those troops are prosecuted, even if the incident is not caught on videotape.

Just this week, an Army second lieutenant was charged with premeditated murder for killing an Iraqi in Sadr City.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: We take a break now. When we come back, how important Falluja was to the insurgency.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MANN: U.S. and Iraqi forces launched an offensive Tuesday to reclaim parts of Mosul, Iraq's third largest city. Insurgents staged an uprising there last week, seizing police stations in support of the fighters in Falluja.

Mosul, some 400 kilometers north of Baghdad, is one of Iraq's most ethnically divided cities. It's been a flashpoint for violence since the United States invaded.

Welcome back.

Mosul is said to be mostly quiet this evening. Further south, Falluja is said to be pretty calm as well, though calm is a relative and often temporary thing in Iraq. Nonetheless, U.S. and Iraqi troops are claiming a major victory in denying insurgents a haven in Falluja.

A short time ago we got in touch with Michael Ware, a reporter for "Time" magazine, who is embedded with U.S. forces.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL WARE, "TIME": Falluja always resonated with a rich symbolism for the Iraqi nationalist parties, but also particularly for the international jihadi milieu.

I mean, I monitor their traffic on secret message boards and constantly shifting Web sites, from al Qaeda, from Zarqawi's Al Tawhid Al Jihad, from a myriad of other jihadi cells and networks. Numerous times, not only in chanting and song and in propaganda terms do they celebrate Falluja, but more often than not it's described as Iraq and the independent Islamic state of Falluja.

And there is a real sense of that, particularly as the jihadis began to highjack the nationalist fight and the sense of holy war turned what was a freedom fight into an Islamic clash of civilizations.

MANN: How much support did they prove to have from the people of Falluja and how much as this outcome, the destruction of Falluja essentially as a base, and maybe the destruction of Falluja temporarily as a city, discredited them in the eyes of the civilians among whom they've prepared?

WARE: I'll give you a couple of anecdotes that perhaps might lend some meager illustration to this.

I was with the insurgents on one occasion as we passed into Falluja. They stopped the car at what is essentially a hardware store. One of them got out and went in to speak to the merchant.

My translator happened to get out to have a cigarette and overheard the conversation. The insurgent was buying wire. Now, he was buying that to make improvised explosive devices to setoff against the American convoys.

Now, when he purchased it, the retail price was something, for example, 1500 Iraqi dinars. Well, when the merchant handed over the wires, he said to him, "For you, 500. God goes with you."

But that's not to say that there was unified support from the people of Falluja. I have some documents from Zarqawi's organizations which was given to me some time after the April uprising. It's essentially what the American military would call an after-action report. When you have a battle, you sit down and write about it and look for lessons learned.

In that, Zarqawi's people talked about homeowners being reluctant to let the fighters in to use their houses, knowing it would become a target for American military.

So there was some friction there, but as time passed, they then started reporting that these frictions had begun to ease and the people united.

MANN: There are other accounts, though, that suggest that the people of Falluja turned against in particular the foreign fighters, that there was intimidation, there was a kind of a Taliban style of devotion to fervent Islam that offended and annoyed many of the people there.

WARE: Among the nationalists, some of the divide was about tactics, the use of suicide bombs, collateral damage.

I was there when they would argue with the jihadis, and on one occasion I heard the nationalists saying we don't agree with suicide bombs or car bombs that kill Iraqis, and one of the jihadis turned and said, well, I'll kill 10 Iraqis to kill one American. And the nationalist said, well, who are we fighting for, then.

MANN: How much is left of Falluja? And for the civilians who fled and will be returning to their city, will there be any reason to be grateful for the events of the last 24 months, for the fact that Iraq is now on its way to democracy and the country has a different set of rulers? Or is the city itself, the landscape there, going to dominate everyone's picture of the future for the next little while?

WARE: Well, is Iraq on the path to democracy? That's a question I'm afraid I don't think I can answer right now. There is still a very rock road to be traversed before we get to that conclusion.

There are many paths that this country can take.

As for the physical destruction of Falluja, it's not Grozny. It hasn't been leveled. It's not Dresden. But there has been significant damage, I mean, and that's a direct result of the tactics of the U.S. military, which by and large one could argue were quite legitimate.

If something looks suspicious or if one man shot at you, leave no doubt. Don't just shoot back with your rifle; blow it apart with the main gun of a tank. Call in the (UNINTELLIGIBLE). For one sniper, level the building -- level the block. That was the attitude. The people were not taking any risks against insurgents or their booby traps.

So parts of Falluja have been laid waste, but a city does remain.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: Michael Ware of "Time" magazine.

We take another break now. When we come back, the apparent execution of a British aid worker and the shockwaves around the world.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANN (voice-over): Iraqi troops found two hostages during their sweep through Falluja. One Iraqi and one Syrian. The Iraqi was found chained to a wall in front of a video camera. Blood lay all over the floor. But at least he was alive. Troops say they also came across houses in which hostages had been executed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were two thin mattresses and straw mats covered in blood. There was a computer and many computer discs found inside the room. There was also a wheelchair which we believe was used to move the prisoners around. We believe they were found and moved around the complex in the wheelchair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANN: Welcome back.

Usually when insurgents kill their hostages, they like to videotape their work and distribute it around the world.

A short while ago, another such tape was surfacing, this one showing the apparent execution of aid worker Margaret Hassan. She dedicated 30 years of her life to helping Iraq's underprivileged.

Simon Israel has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAHSEEN HASSAN, HUSBAND OF MARGARET HASSAN: I am Tahseen Hassan, husband of Margaret Hassan. I have been told that there is a video of Margaret which appears to show her murdered.

SIMON ISRAEL, CHANNEL 4 NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The moment all hope evaporated of saving the life of this dedicated aid worker came today through confirmation that a video released to Al Jazeera TV within the last two days did indeed depict the murder of Margaret Hassan. She had been shot, according to staff at the Arabic TV station.

T. HASSAN: I beg those people who took Margaret to tell me what they have done with her. They can tell me. They can call the help line. I need her. I need her back to rest in peace.

ISRAEL: The British embassy in Baghdad said tonight the video is probably genuine, and Margaret's brothers and sisters, in a statement issued through the foreign office, said:

"Our hearts are broken. We have kept hoping for as long as we could, but we now have to accept that Margaret has probably gone and at last her suffering has ended. Those who are guilty of this atrocious act and those who support them have no excuses. Nobody can justify this. Margaret was against sanctions and the war. To commit such a crime against anyone is unforgivable, but we cannot believe how anybody could to this to our kind, compassionate sister. The gap she leaves will never be filled."

Four weeks ago, when the 59-year-old British Iraqi national was kidnapped on her way to work by an unnamed Iraqi group, Tony Blair vowed to do whatever he could to secure her release.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MIN.: This is -- this is someone who has actually lived in Iraq for 30 years. This is someone who is immensely respected, married to an Iraqi, someone who is doing her level best to help the country, and I think it shows you the type of people we're up against, that they were prepared to kidnap somebody like this.

ISRAEL: Her family also appeared to the Irish leader, Bertie Ahern, on the same day the kidnappers released another video of the humanitarian worker with the message for Britain to pull its troops out of Iraq.

Mrs. Hassan's employers, CARE International, who shut down their operations in Iraq in the wake of her kidnap, said tonight:

"We are shocked and appalled that this has been the apparent outcome of her abduction. Mrs. Hassan was an extraordinary woman who dedicated her life to the poor and disadvantaged in Iraq, particularly the children. The whole of CARE is in mourning."

The video purported of Mrs. Hassan's execution has not been broadcast. Al Jazeera TV say what it shows is the highly committed Iraqi humanitarian, blindfolded with her back to the camera, then she is shot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: Joining us now to talk about the murder of Margaret Hassan is Sajjan Gohel of the Asia Pacific Foundation.

Who gains from this kind of crime?

SAJJAN GOHEL, ASIA PACIFIC FOUNDATION: Well, Jonathan, it's a tactic that the insurgents, the bandits and the other type of armed groups inside Iraq have used very effectively.

Some have done it to abduct people for monetary purposes. Others have abducted individuals to purport their own agenda, their own propaganda, get media attention, and also to create a climate of fear inside Iraq.

These people have benefitted very effectively and they tragically will use these examples in the future, because as we've seen, they are able to capture the media spotlight as well as gain notoriety internationally, something which all groups seem to benefit from.

MANN: Depending on how you do the math, about 160 or 170 foreigners have been kidnapped. Fewer than a dozen women. And of those women, none has been confirmed to be killed until Margaret Hassan, except for the fact that U.S. forces in Falluja found apparently the disemboweled body of a woman that they believe was also a Westerner.

What's changing? Women are now no longer safe either?

GOHEL: We have to understand, Jonathan, that the people that are doing this have no rules. They have no code of conduct. To them, everyone is a target. They make no distinction now between men or women, Iraqi or non-Iraqi, civilian or military, even Muslim or non-Muslim. To them, anybody is a target. They will pick on any individual that they can use that will successfully be able to purport as a pawn for their own agenda.

And it's something that is very disturbing. Now, Margaret Hassan is one victim. The other individual that has been found in Falluja is believed to be a Polish individual. And what worries me more is that now, anything can happen. Nothing is surprising. But everything still remains very shocking.

MANN: There seemed to be a debate, even within the community of terrorists who are carrying out these kidnappings -- a statement attributed to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi appeared on a Web site. I'm sure you know more about it than I do. But he offered to release her if he could get hold of her, and he called on the group that was holding her to let her go.

Was there internal disaccord about this particular kidnapping?

GOHEL: What's particularly interesting about the abduction of Margaret Hassan is that we don't actually know the group that abducted her. There is not enough information as to who they are and what the ultimate goal was.

They gave a purported message that they wanted British troops to leave Iraq, but we're still not sure if they were a bandit group or whether they were aligned to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi.

However, I think it is a cheap publicity stunt for Al Zarqawi to say that he'd want her release. This is the individual who has actually been responsible for the beheading on television of a number of Westerners. I don't think he's going to be shedding any tears for Margaret Hassan. He is an individual who has brought a very cold, chilling dimension of beheading inside Iraq and he is basically the one who is most wanted now for these series of attacks.

But it doesn't need always Al Zarqawi, as we've seen. Other groups have the means and capability of doing it. And that's the problem with hostage taking. It's very cost effective, easily perpetrated, doesn't require suicide bomber. These are the tactics now that are being used.

MANN: Sajjan Gohel, of the Asia Pacific Foundation, thanks so much for this.

That's INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. The news continues.

We leave you now with some images of Margaret Hassan, the first woman, it is believed, the first foreign woman, for sure, reported to have been killed. Some of her supporters calling for her release.

END

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