An inside report on the fall of Fallujah

It's just two months since the battle for Fallujah: a massive onslaught by the US forces involving air bombardment, tank fire and ground troops.

But what really happened inside the city. Did the US really rid it of insurgents? What became of the people who lived there?

In a special report for Channel 4 News, produced by Guardian Films, a hospital doctor from Baghdad travelled to the Fallujah area to find out.

Dr Ali Fadhil went first to Habbanyah a town to which some of Fallujah's 350 thousand residents fled when the American attack began. He then travelled into the city itself to find much of it had been levelled.

The US launched its assault on November 8th. The stated aim of Operation Phantom Fury: to clear Fallujah of rebel fighters ahead of the January elections.

US forces say they killed 1200 insurgents. There's no official figure of the number of Iraqi civilians killed.

The film, reported by Dr Ali Fadhil and produced by Guardian Films is available on our broadband service. A transcript of the report is displayed below.

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Transcript of Dr Ali Fadhil's report:

Fallujah has been closed as a city for two months. Nahida is one of the first Fallujans to go back since the the Americans occupied the city.

She wanted to show me what had been left behind.

"Look at it ! Furniture, clothes thrown every wher!. They smashed up the cupboards, and they wrote something bad on the dressing-table mirror." - Nahida Kham

She doesn't speak English so I explained to her what the words mean:

'FUCK IRAQ AND EVERY IRAQI IN IT!''

"I knew it. I knew these words were insulting" - Nahida Kham

"God salutes the Fallujan heroes! They didn't lower their heads to the Americans! God praises the Fallujan heroes!" - Song on Islamist website

Every Fallujan knows this song. It was written after the war and is full of hatred towards the Americans. It's impossible to live in the city at the moment. There is no water, no electricity and no sewage. It's almost a city of ghosts.

Most of the 350,000 people who used to live there now live in refugee camps. I wanted to get inside the city. - but it was closed.

So I started by looking for Fallujans in the surrounding villages and camps. I began my journey in Habbanyah, 35km west of Fallujah.



This place used to be a tourist resort; Saddam's own son, Uday, used to come here for his holidays. People here are cutting down trees and making fires to keep warm. Abu Rabe'e has been living here for 2 months now.

"We're meant to be the country of oil, aren't we? But look at me: I'm measuring the kerosene for this lamp by the drop. We've no heat here - we're using wood for the fire" - Abu Rabee

These people are freezing. They have received no food aid for three months - they're meant to be voting on January the 30th .

"We won't vote! We just won't vote! They must take us back to our houses first." - Abu Rabee

Inside one of the tents I met Hameed Allawy. I asked him if he had received his voting papers.

"No - I didn't receive them and I don't want them, anyway. None of the Fallujans here have got their voting coupons. " - Hameed Allawy:

Suddenly, we were told that some people were unhappy that we were filming. It felt dangerous and we had to leave.

We go straight to Saqlawyah - a village just north of Fallujah. At Friday prayers, the talk is all about the elections.

'When they hand out food rations, they should give us our voting papers as well. Why isn't the government giving people here their vote?' - Sermon

Sheikh Jamal al-Mihimidy, is a powerful man. Many Fallujan refugees come to listen to his sermons. He gets very emotional when he talks about last November's attack.

'And I saw with my own eyes the holy Koran thrown to the floor of the mosque by those sons of pigs and monkeys. The Americans were treading on the holy Koran and it broke my heart"

I wanted to speak to the sheikh. Back in November, the Americans had asked him to remove bodies from Fallujah. I wanted to know what he'd seen.

"The Americans had marked the houses with dead bodies with a cross. That's where we found the martyrs. In my opinion, these people were civilians - not terrorists. They were men who had stayed behind in the city to protect their homes. I say this because we found the bodies in groups of two or three or four : it was Ramadan and people would naturally gather together for Iftar - the first meal after fasting.

We found the bodies right behind their front doors. It looked to me as if they had opened their doors to the Americans and been immediately shot dead. That's how we found them." - Sheikh Al Mihimdi

Sheikh Jamal took me to a cemetery on the edge of the city. He showed me where he had buried the bodies.

He claimed that none of them had weapons with them and that he found an old man of 90 who had been shot dead in his kitchen.

The grave stones had no names, only numbers. I counted 76 of them. The Americans claim they killed 1200, so even if these people were insurgents, where are the other graves?

I wanted to get inside Fallujah itself, but to do that I have to get the new "Fallujah Identity Card"

Everyone who wants to return to the city now has to get this ID from the American military. To most Iraqis, this seems crazy: it's the only place in Iraq where you need ID to get into your own city.

'The card is really a control measure." - Major Paul Hackett

But the men queuing for the card told me they saw it as another punishment given to them by the Americans.

"This is just another humilation for the people of Fallujah. I think they are doing it on purpose to humiliate us"

Fallujans have always been so proud of their city: concepts such as honour and dignity matter a lot here. So to be finger-printed by an American soldier just in order to go home is embarrassing. That's why these men are covering their faces.

'They can keep card as a souvenir....' - Major Paul Hackett

Finally, we made it into Fallujah. The first thing we noticed was grafitti saying: 'long live the mujahideen'.

I couldn't believe it: the whole city is destroyed. It was a big shock. I wasn't prepared for this much destruction.

I was here just before the American attack. It's hard to believe this is the same city; it's incredible, destruction everywhere. Fallujah used to be one of the few modern Iraqi cities and now there is nothing. The only people I see are Fallujans trying to work out where they used to live. People like Abu Salah. This is all that remains of his home

"Look at these matresses here! These were for my son's wedding. This was my son's room. And, look, here! This was our kitchen... This is the sugar bag that we left in the kitchen right here...

If Allawi wants us to vote in the elections, then let him come here first and look at the state we're living in" - Abu Salah

I could smell bodies beneath the rubble. I went to the old city of Fallujah. This was the place were the four American contractors were brutally lynched last March.

The Americans don't allow any one to go here: they say it's not safe. It is a scary place, but these Fallujan people insist on taking me somewhere. They want to show me some thing really gruesome.

I counted 4 dead bodies. They are rotting. It looks like these people were shot while they were sleeping. It's very common for friends in Iraq to sleep in this way together.

There are no signs of a gun battle and no bullet holes.

I could not see any weapons. There are no obvious signs that they were insurgents... I am told they were civilians.

Nearby, in another house, another dead body. But here, there were definite signs that this was an insurgent. There is an RPG launcher on the roof of his car, and a booby-trap bomb by the door.

In both cases, the corpses have been eaten by hungry dogs. I see a lot of dead dogs in the city. There is a serious outbreak of rabies.

" We received many cases of rabies - fifty-one"" - Dr. Adnan Chaichan

Dr.Chaichan and his colleagues are living in Fallujah's main hospital. The city is empty, so they have no patients. Their only job is to recover rotting corpses and bring them for burial.

When I went to the main cemetery in Fallujah, they were still burying their dead. Two months after the fighting started, we still don't know how many Fallujans died.

But we do know the American casualty figures: 51 US soldiers were killed and over 400 were wounded. I counted 65 new graves here. There is a sign outside. It says that only martyrs who fought against the Americans are to be buried here. The order comes from the Mujahideen Council in Fallujah.

I notice a grave of a Syrian fighter: it says he was killed in an operation last June in Baghdad. He was brought to Fallujah for burial.

While I've been in the city, some Fallujans have told me - in private - that they are angry with the insurgent groups and that they blame them as well as the Americans for the destruction of their city.

Mr and Mrs Salman have just got back to Fallujah. They are looking for their son Ahmed and they go directly to the cemetery.

Q: Do you think you'll find your son here?

A: Yes - God willing

At first, they can't find his grave.

"The chalk gets rubbed off the gravestones - .The last one we buried was the Tunisian. Your son is next to him. " - Man

Ahmed was 18 years old. He was still at school. His mother had never wanted him to be a fighter.

"Mother: Ahmed, my dear son, I told you not to go with those men. I told you they were deceiving you, my darling.

Father: Shut up, woman!

Mother: I blame Iyad Allawi for all this. I'd like to cut his throat!

Father Shut up. Woman!

Man: No let her speak, it's the truth!

Mother: I would like to cut..him up into pieces..even then that wouldn't be enough..

I blame Allawi and Saddam!

Father: Shut up, woman!"

Ahmed was dead but what had happened to the other Mujahideen fighters? Had the Americans really wiped them all out?

For the two weeks, I'd been travelling around the villages trying to get in contact with one insurgent leader. My sources told me he was still alive. Finally, we met him.

They call him Abu Shaiba. He is the commander of the so- called "Army of Mohammad" which is based in the al-Shuhada'a district in south Fallujah.

"The fighters withdrew from the town following an order from our senior leadership. We pulled out, but not because we had lost the fight with the Americans. It was a tactical decision to re-group. We know we will prevail,. God willing, we will be victorious - in Fallujah or elsewhere." - Abu Shaiba

He said many ridiculous things in his interview, but this seemed to be true. It explained why I didn't find many mujahideen fighters' graves.

If so many of the insurgents escaped, what did the American forces really achieve in Fallujah?

The violence has simply spread to other parts of the country, over 300,000 people have lost their homes and now bitterly resent the Americans. 'The City of Mosques' has become the 'City of Rubble'.

It is hard to see how this will strengthen Iraq's new democracy. The elections are two weeks away - but most of the Fallujans I met won't even be given the chance to vote.

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