Disarray in US hunt for Iraqi Fallujah chief
The appointment of an Iraqi general to head the brigade taking over from US forces besieging Fallujah was reduced to farce today.
The former Republican Guard general, who effectively took over on Friday, was summarily removed from the post that America’s top soldier said he had never had.
His replacement will be a general once exiled by Saddam Hussein, said US officials.
The original commander, Major General Jassim Mohammed Saleh, who moved into Fallujah on Friday at the head of the new brigade, will probably be handed a subordinate position to Major General Mohammed Latif, the official said
General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that media were “very, very inaccurate” in identifying Saleh as commander of the Iraqi force that moved during the weekend into positions outside Fallujah.
He said officials in Baghdad were checking into Saleh’s background. Friends and relatives have said he served during the 1980s in Saddam’s feared Republican Guard. Later, they said, he headed Saddam’s infantry forces.
“There are people that know his record, know what he’s done in the previous Saddam Hussein regime,” Myers said. “They’re going to have to find an appropriate role, if a role at all, for him,” he said.
Myers said Saleh “has not been vetted yet and probably won’t be the one in command.”
But Marine Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne said near Fallujah that Saleh had opposed Saddam’s regime and paid a “steep personal price.”
Byrne and his colleagues appeared to have accepted Saleh because he offered the best alternative to bloody fighting that could have produced casualty rates politically untenable both in Iraq and the United States.
The Marines backed off their threatening posture around Fallujah, inhabited by adherents of Saddam’s Sunni branch of Islam, as elements of Saleh’s brigade replaced them In the city, crowds waved Iraqi flags, cheered and celebrated, many flashing V for victory signs.
General Latif participated in meetings with Marines last week on the creation of the Brigade.
The top Marine commander, Lieutenant General James Conway, said he believed that Latif had been exiled by Saddam’s regime for several years.
“He is very well thought of, very well respected by the Iraqi general officers. You can just see the body language between them.
"And if I had to guess at this point, when we have this brigade fully formed, he demonstrates a level of leadership that tells me that he could become that brigade commander,” Conway said.
A US official said today the decision to make Latif in charge emerged as it became clear that he was more influential.
“General Saleh as I understand it will be working at the battalion level, not the brigade level,” he said.
An American soldier was killed and two others injured when they came under attack from small arms fire in Baghdad today.
The troops from the 1st Armored Division were providing security at a weapons cache which was discovered last night.
The shooting brought the US death toll to 152 since a wave of violence began on April 1. At least 754 American troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.
