Fallujah "liberated", supposedly

Troops Battle for Last Parts Of Fallujah
Senior Iraqi Officials Claim City Is Liberated


By Jackie Spinner and Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 14, 2004; Page A01

The U.S. military has declared Fallujah "liberated", but there is still intense fighting going on. The last "pocket of resistance" is "surprisingly" well organized in a way similar to a regular army. Oh, and violence has increased in other parts of Iraq, seemingly because some who were in Fallujah have left to take up the fight elsewhere.

Zarqawi, the main target of this offensive, was nowhere to be found. Hmmm...

Iraqi rebels slip away to fight another day

By Aqeel Hussein in al-Nouaimia and Toby Harnden in Fallujah

(Filed: 14/11/2004) (telegraph.co.uk)

So much for capturing the bulk of the resistance.

Families fleeing the besieged city of Fallujah say that rebel fighters have slipped through the American and Iraqi military cordon and have been driven away in Mercedes cars to rejoin the battle elsewhere in Iraq.

The fighters, said to include foreign militants using satellite telephones, are believed to be heading for Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, to open a new front.

Regardless of anything else, the fighting was rough:


55 US Soldiers Killed This Week

At least 34 killed in Fallujah alone

by Michael Ewens (antiwar.com; November 14, 2004)
The most telling sentence is:

[the military] continues to pursue policies that suppose there exists a static number of Iraqis willing to fight the occupation: if they could only kill them all, democracy and calm would flourish. Of course, it is more likely that these incursions will create more insurgency.