The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

226 Chapter 9
Marines had to engage in severe restraint. The Second Battle of Fallujah
offered them “a stand- up fight.” 33 Important for Marine lessons learned, the
First Battle of Fallujah also offered, as observed by Bing West, “a cautionary
tale about mixing the combustible ingredients of battle and politics.” 34
On March 31, 2004, within a week of Marines replacing the Eighty-
Second Airborne in Fallujah, four security contractors drove through the
city, unescorted and without flagging their route to the Marines overseeing
the area. Insurgents ambushed their two SUVs, riddled the occupants
with bullets, mangled their burned corpses, and hung two of the desecrated
bodies from a bridge. Scenes of the grisly affair outraged Americans and
resurrected the trauma of Mogadishu, Somalia, a decade earlier. Washington
demanded immediate retaliation. I MEF commander General Conway
and First Division commander General Mattis pushed back against political
pressure to react immediately. They stressed that the Marines had developed
a patient and effective strategy to hunt down the killers and that reacting
in anger with a full- scale attack against a city of civilians was strategically
unwise. Marine leadership was prepared to channel its bias for action into
carefully planned, targeted operations in order to achieve the strategic mission
of political stability. In the daily report to superiors, the division’s assistant
commander, Brig. Gen. John F. Kelly admonished:
As we review the actions in Fallujah yesterday, the murder of
four private security personnel in the most brutal way, we are
convinced that this act was spontaneous mob action. Under the
wrong circumstances this could have taken place in any city in
Iraq. We must avoid the temptation to strike out in retribution. In
the only 10 days we have been here we have engaged the “good”
and the bad in Fallujah everyday, and have casualties to show
for our efforts. We must remember that the citizens and officials
of Fallujah were already gathering up and delivering what was
left of three victims before asked to do so, and continue in their
efforts to collect up what they can of the dismembered remnants
of the fourth. We have a well thought out campaign plan that considers
the Fallujah problem across its very complicated spectrum.
This plan most certainly includes kinetic action, but going overly
kinetic at this juncture plays into the hands of the opposition in
exactly the way they assume we will. This is why they shoot and
throw hand grenades out of crowds, to bait us into overreaction.
The insurgents did not plan this crime, it dropped into their lap.
We should not fall victim to their hopes for a vengeful response.
To react to this provocation, as heinous as it is, will likely negate
the efforts the 82nd ABD paid for in blood, and complicate our
campaign plan which we have not yet been given the opportunity
to implement. 35