Fallujah: 3 years later

Three years ago, the battle in Fallujah was brutal. Life in Fallujah today is still brutal -- but in a more covert way. From the UK Independent:

Fallujah is more difficult to enter than any city in the world. On the road from Baghdad I counted 27 checkpoints, all manned by well-armed soldiers and police. "The siege is total," says Dr Kamal in Fallujah Hospital as he grimly lists his needs, which include everything from drugs and oxygen to electricity and clean water.

The last time I tried to drive to Fallujah, several years ago, I was caught in the ambush of an American fuel convoy and had to crawl out of the car and lie beside the road with the driver while US soldiers and guerrillas exchanged gunfire. The road is now much safer but nobody is allowed to enter Fallujah who does not come from there and can prove it through elaborate identity documents. The city has been sealed off since November 2004 when United States Marines stormed it in an attack that left much of the city in ruins.

At one time Fallujah had a population of 600,000, but none of the officials in the city seemed to know how many there are now. Col Feisal is hopeful of investment and took us to a white, new building called the Fallujah Business Development Centre, which had been partly funded by a branch of the US State Department. Tall American soldiers were guarding a business development conference. "It has attracted one American investor so far," said a uniformed American adviser hopefully. "My name is Sarah and I am in psychological operations," said another US officer and proudly showed us around a newly established radio Fallujah.

At the other end of the city we crossed over the iron bridge built in about 1930 and now the only link with the far side of the Euphrates. There is a modern bridge half a mile down river but it has been taken over by the American army and, say locals, used as a vehicle park. On the far side of the bridge, past beds of tall bullrushes where people escaping the city during the sieges of 2004 tried to hide, there is a building eviscerated by bombs on one side of the road. On the other side is the hospital whose officials US commanders used to accuse of systematically exaggerating the number of those killed by American bombing.

When I asked what the hospital lacked Dr Kamal said wearily: "Drugs, fuel, electricity, generators, a water treatment system, oxygen and medical equipment." It was difficult not to think that American assistance might have gone to the hospital rather than the business development centre.

Indeed. Please read the rest of the story here.