World

Fallujah Deal Not Done

April 30, 2004 / 6:48 AM EDT / CBS/AP

U.S. Marines and former Iraqi generals were negotiating on a pull-back of U.S. forces from Fallujah, and a U.S. commander said Thursday a tentative deal on ending the siege had been reached. But a Pentagon official said the agreement was still not final.

Elsewhere, 10 U.S. soldiers were killed Thursday — eight of them in a car bombing south of Baghdad. Two were killed in a convoy attack in Baghdad and roadside bomb in Baqoubah, north of the capital.

After word of a possible agreement in Fallujah, Marines and guerrillas skirmished in the city, with blasts and sporadic gunfire heard from the northern part of the city — though it appeared lighter than the heavy barrages that Marines launched against insurgents over the past three days.

Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne announced that a deal was reached by which Marines would withdraw and a newly created Iraqi force led by a former general from Saddam Hussein's army would take over security in the city. Byrne later said the deal was "tentative" and "fine points" still had to be worked out.

In Washington, the chief Pentagon spokesman said, "There's no deal that we're aware of."

In other developments:

Seven Iraqi police and a civilian were killed Thursday in attacks by gunmen on police positions in the northern city of Mosul, the U.S. military said.

Gunmen killed a foreign civilian in Basra and seriously wounded his driver, an Iraqi police official said. Three members of an Iraqi family were killed when a rocket hit a residential building in the northern city of Beiji.

In southern Iraq, witnesses reported that Shiite militiamen clashed Thursday with U.S. troops at a base in the holy city of Najaf. Earlier, militiamen fired seven mortars at the base, causing no casualties. A Spanish patrol fought attackers in south-central Iraq overnight but suffered no casualties in the short skirmish.

CBS News' 60 Minutes II has obtained photographs that are part of the evidence in the case against six American soldiers facing court martial for mistreating Iraqi prisoners.

A CBS News/New York Times poll finds just 32 percent of Americans, the lowest number ever, say Iraq was a threat that required immediate military action.

Former members of Saddam Hussein's security service are believed to be conducting a loosely coordinated campaign of bombings and attacks in Iraq that they prepared for since before the U.S. invasion last year, a defense official said Thursday.

Washington is under intense international pressure to find a peaceful solution to the standoff in Fallujah.

U.S. Marines encircled the city of 200,000 on April 5, following the killings and mutilations of four U.S. contract workers on March 31. In addition to the hundreds of Iraqis killed, at least eight Marines died in the fighting.

Only last week, U.S. commanders threatened to launch an all-out attack on the city to root out an estimated 1,500 Sunni insurgents inside.

Marines on the south side of the city began packing up gear Thursday in preparation to withdraw and breaking down earthen berms and other security barriers near their positions. But Byrne later said that the timing for a pullback was unclear.

Marines on the north side, meanwhile, were engaged against insurgents in the Golan neighborhood, a bastion of the insurgent leadership.

Witnesses reported rockets fired into the Golan, and two houses were on fire. Ambulances and fire engines tried to move in, but had to turn back amid the gunfire. Marines and guerrillas have clashed repeatedly in the northern district since Monday, as U.S. forces respond to what they say are gunmen attack.

The Fallujah negotiations were being held between U.S. forces and Fallujah representatives, including four Iraqi generals.

The deal being worked out would provide for a new force, known as the Fallujah Protective Army, to enter the city and provide security. It will consist of up to 1,100 Iraqi soldiers led by a former general from Saddam's military, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said.

Marine forces would gradually pull back from their positions in and around Fallujah, to allow FPA forces to take positions enforcing the cordon of the city and move into some neighborhoods, Byrne said.

"The plan is that the whole of Fallujah will be under the control of the FPA," which will be subordinate to the Marines, Byrne said, calling the deal "an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem."

Byrne identified the commander only as Gen. Salah, a former division commander under Saddam. He did not know the general's full name. But a Lt. Gen. Salah Abboud al-Jabouri, a native of the Fallujah region, served as governor of Anbar province under Saddam and was a senior commander in Saddam's military.

Many of the guerrillas in Fallujah are believed to be former members of Saddam's regime or military.

The forces will "have certain advantages that we don't," Byrne said. "One, they're Iraqis. Two, they're local. So, they know the populace, they know the terrain."

It seems likely that some of the insurgent gunmen in the city — mainly criminals who fought Americans for money and some disgruntled ex-soldiers in the city, though not hardliners or Islamic fighters — would likely end up as part of the force, said a Marine officer on condition of anonymity.

The moves came after three days of intense violence in Fallujah, despite U.S. attempts to maintain a cease-fire. Inside the city, some residents breathed a sigh of relief.

"I will be so happy today. I'm hoping for a quiet night without bombs or explosions," said Hassan al-Halbousi, a resident in his 60's who spent the entire siege alone in his house after sending his family to Baghdad soon after it began.

"I can't believe what we have gone through," he said. "The bombing has terrified me. No one is in the streets … Even the dogs in the city were hunting us because they had no food."