Dear Friends and Family

Fallujah, Iraq the 7th of September, 2004

If Iraq is the most dangerous country on earth, then Fallujah is the most dangerous city in Iraq. Just about the time I feel comfortable about the danger level here, a couple of rockets explode somewhere close enough to jar the fillings out of your teeth. Such as Sunday morning when we were forming up our convoy to drive to the “Forward Liaison Team” post, just two miles outside of town. The sirens were wailing and everyone hit the dirt. Well, I did not; I was sitting in our armored Suburban at the time. “Hamdilila! Thank God” This is like a giant, city size game of Russian roulette. Big problem ? As great as the danger is for any American, it is far more perilous for an Iraqi who dares to collaborate with the Coalition forces. If an Iraqi dares to sell soft drinks to us, he and his immediate family are under a threat of death.

To work for the US military is a capital offense. How about the case of the Iraqi National Guard Colonel that had his eighty year old father kidnapped? The old man was to be killed unless the son would take his fathers place in captivity. Another Iraqi pro-coalition leader, who took the risk of supporting the Marines, was found lying in an elementary school play ground, beaten to death, several days after he was abducted from his military headquarters. At the present time, neither the US military nor the Fallujah civil authority is in control of the city. The Mujahadeen (selfless defenders of God) are the only ones safe and in charge inside of town. These “insurgents” are roaming freely about the city, enforcing their will upon the community. It is of little surprise to me that the ill trained and under equipped police are at best of little opposition to the de facto power and at worse active participants with them. The situation is akin to the atmosphere that must have existed in the South during the civil rights movement in the fifties. Local authorities are torn between the law of the land and the will of their peers. Only here they don’t just stand in the door of the local school, here they shoot you with an R.P.G…..a really big problem. ?

The Marine’s solution to the problem is simply to fire all of the Fallujah police force and most of the area National Guard members. Why not, as if the next bunch of applicants for the job would be any better. What it will do is to stampede 1200 men, that are now mostly sitting on the fence, towards the Muja’s side. What it must be like to live inside of this city? The town covers roughly 25 square miles. Looking at the aerial photograph of Fallujah it is remarkable how much it resembles Conway AR. Fallujah is the same distance from Baghdad as Conway is from Little Rock. The major freeway borders the town on the east, the Euphrates River on the West. The industrial part is in the South-East of town. Although somewhat smaller in geographical size to Conway, Fallujah supposed to have more than 250 000 inhabitants. Residents now are encouraged to leave the city to stay out of harms way. Go…. go where? Just pack up and take the family out of town. For how long? Leave all their property behind in a place where life has no rights, yet alone anything that you can’t get into the back seat of your VW Passat? The Iraqi news on television says that now all is quiet in Najaf, south of Baghdad. In Najaf the fighting is over, the fight for Fallujah may soon begin. There are no special Mosque’s here, no holy shrines to be considered of during the attack, only young Marines and young Arabs. Both determined to fight for the side that they perceive as the right one. Each wants Iraq to be a better place for their having been here. One side may be right, one side maybe wrong. One thing is for sure, Fallujah will not be better of for there having been a war here. ?

Ma Al Salama
Rod