Not a Happy New Year in Fallujah

Since its large scale destruction in the November U.S. offensive, Fallujah has often slipped out of sight and out of mind of the press, as assaults by insurgents in Iraq have increased elsewhere and the January elections approach. A new report from that city by a major news outlet at least remedies that in part.

A Los Angeles Times article by Edmund Sanders on Thursday reported the disgust among the few refugees who have returned to the battered city and found: "Lakes of sewage in the streets. The smell of corpses inside charred buildings. No water or electricity. Long waits and thorough searches by U.S. troops at checkpoints. Warnings to watch out for land mines and booby traps. Occasional gunfire between troops and insurgents."

Sanders noted that "the initial clamor by an estimated 200,000 refugees to return to the homes they had fled last month is being replaced by a bitter resignation that the city remains largely uninhabitable and unsafe. Hopes of quickly restoring normality to the restive Sunni Muslim city are fading, raising questions about whether Fallujah will be ready to participate in the Jan. 30 national election."

Nearly 15,000 residents have re-entered Fallujah during the last week, military figures show. Males between the ages of 15 and 55 must carry special identification cards.

U.S. military officials have announced plans to use fingerprinting and retina scans to prevent insurgents from returning.

Most are returning to destroyed and looted homes in a city that resembles a disaster zone with no power, heat or running water. Some are finding bodies of relatives that stayed behind.

Sanders recounted the experience of Yasser Abbas Atiya, a grocer who "swore he'd sooner sleep on the streets of his beloved hometown of Fallujah than spend another night in the squalid Baghdad shelter where his family had been squatting."

Thirty minutes after he returned home this week, however, Atiya had seen enough, finding his house wrecked and ransacked by American soldiers. He left in dismay and had no plans to go back.

He told Sanders: "I couldn't stand it. I was born in that town. I know every inch of it. But when I got there, I didn't recognize it."