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Lieutenant General John F. Sattler, Commander of US Marine Forces, Central Command (CENTCOM), and Commanding General of I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), Camp Pendleton, California
As Commanding General of I MEF, LtGen Sattler commanded the joint and coalition forces at the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq from 8 to 20 November 2004. Fallujah is about 40 kilometers west of Baghdad on the Euphrates River and has a civilian population of about 250,000-only an estimated 1,500 of whom remained in the city during the battle. The battle was fought by a force of about 15,000, including US Marine, Army, Air Force and Navy units plus British and Iraqi units. The main force swept through the city from north to south down corridors. The forces cordoned the city and searched door-to-door, clearing buildings and engaging the enemy in the streets. This battle was reputedly the most fierce urban fighting for the Marines since the Battle of Hue City in Vietnam in 1968.
Q What prompted the second Battle of Fallujah? Overall, how did you conduct operations, and how effective were they?
A In the first battle of Fallujah in April 2004, we did not have an opportunity to shape the battle-only to deal with the enemy's activities. So we took the lessons learned, such as how the enemy used information operations [10] to stop the battle, to set the stage for Fallujah II.
All the streets into the town were sealed by known thugs and murderers. I wouldn't call them "insurgents"-they were just a bunch of rogue thugs. But they controlled the city through intimidation.
The Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi determined that Fallujah had to be cleared to keep from exporting terrorism. Thugs could come to Fallujah; get their missions, ammunition and training; and move out to other parts of the country to execute their missions. The only way to stop these thugs was to clean them out.
Once General Rich Natonski [MajGen Richard R], the 1st Marine Division Commander, and his staff did their troop-to-task analysis, they asked me for additional forces. So we brought together an operational planning team and worked out a holistic plan to cover ground combat, aviation and combat support, to include operations in Phase IV [after major...