Richard Lowry - New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah

In this superbly written book detailing the battles for Fallujah, Richard Lowry focuses on powerful accounts of the tactical campaign. Braving the toughest urban combat since World War II, our Marines, soldiers, sailors, and airmen cleared the way for success at the operational and strategic levels of Operation Iraq Freedom (OIF-I). As the Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) commander during Operation New Dawn, I was honored to observe the superb performance of our young men and women. Quite simply, their valiance turned the tide. Todays readers and tomorrows historians will be most thankful that Richard devoted years of his life to ensure New Dawn not only accurately documents these battles, but also rightfully gives the credit to those young Americans whose sacrifices made success possible.

In the fall of 2001, I was already on orders to leave my assignment in the Pentagon as Vice Director of the J8 to command the 24th Infantry Division and Fort Riley, Kansas. On the afternoon of September 11, 2001after the Twin Towers had collapsed, after American Airlines Flight 77 had slammed into the Pentagon, and after I saw firsthand the devastation that could be wrought by global terrorismI knew that I would be focused on training and preparing soldiers for war. I had no vision of what that war would look like, but I knew that the Army in which I enlisted after high school graduation and had served ever since was going to be at war in the twilight of my career.

That afternoon, I could not have envisioned becoming the CENTCOM Chief of Staff during the final planning phases of Operation Iraq Freedom, nor of taking command of the III Corps, deploying it to Iraq, and becoming the senior commander of the ground forces there with the mission of helping its people hold their first free elections.

I had never heard of Fallujah, and I certainly could not envision developing a Corps Operation three years later to rid this city of the thugs, criminals, foreign fighters, insurgents, and Al Qaeda operatives whose occupation of Fallujah was a significant obstacle to Iraqi democracy. On the afternoon of September 11, I could not have imagined that my entire career would now point to one operation: an end to the enemy occupation of Fallujah, which was a malignant tumor that needed to be cut away and destroyed. Defeating the enemy there would be essential to Iraqs first successful elections in January 2005. Fortunately, we had the worlds best warfighters, whom Richard has so aptly honored in his book.

On my pre-deployment sight survey prior to moving III Corps Headquarters to Iraq, I met with General John Abizaid and learned that LTG Ric Sanchez would remain in Iraq as the Coalition Joint Task Force-7 (CJTF-7) Commander focused on the strategic level of Operation Iraq Freedom. General Abizaid needed me to focus on the day-to-day operations. As colonels, Ric and I overlapped for a year at Fort Riley and were accustomed to working together. Based upon General Abizaids guidance, I leaned into the operational fight and intelligence that supported it. With a career in the operational Army, I was ready to use my education, training, and experiences to successfully achieve our goals in Iraq.

Violence was down during the first three months of 2004 because of Saddams capture, but that changed on March 31 when insurgents in Fallujah dragged four Blackwater contractors from their SUVs, beat them savagely, and set them on fire. The brutal desecration of their bodiespictures of which were infamously broadcast around the worldprompted some leaders to advocate immediate retaliation. Although a response was justified, hindsight tells us a more carefully considered reaction would have better served our short- and long-term goals.

Two concurrent decisions proved also to be missteps: the capture of one of Muqtada al-Sadrs top deputies, and the closure of Al Hawza , a newspaper published by his supporters. For good reasons, many leadersfrom Anbar, Baghdad, CENTCOM, DoD, and on to the White Housewere focused on a battle of revenge in Fallujah. But because of these three uncoordinated, concurrent decisions with respect to Fallujah and Sadr, the Coalition was fighting extreme Sunni and Shia forces across almost the entire country of Iraq by the second week in April.

While LTG Sanchez and Ambassador Paul Bremer focused on Fallujah, I turned to the remainder of the country to help the Coalitions division and brigade commanders get the resources to successfully put down the uprising. The enemy destroyed about a dozen bridges on our main supply route from Kuwait, and ambushed convoys at will across the country. Battle was joined in neighborhoods across Baghdad. Large 5, 000-gallon tankers could be seen burning from our headquarters. The British and coalition partners were holding their own in the south, but the Poles and coalition partners in south-central Iraq needed help.

All units took on the task of guarding logistics convoys, and notwithstanding the significant fight in which they found themselves in the northern part of the Sunni triangle, we carved a reserve out of the 1st Infantry Division. We increased this reserve by taking a Stryker Battalion from the Multi-National Brigade-North, which added risk to an economy of force operationa risk that I believed had to be taken.

American, Iraqi, and international media were strongly criticizing Marine tactics in Fallujah, while supplies of ammunition, fuel, and water were running low. As a result of our inability to disrupt the enemys effective use of information operations, the political support for continued operations was withdrawn and the Marines were ordered to pull out of Fallujah. The solution was to form an Iraqi unit, the Fallujah Brigade, which would be tasked to control the city and bring the Blackwater contractors murderers to justice. Although we all wanted the Fallujah Brigade experiment to be successful, very few coalition leaders were optimistic.