Marines in Fallujah are reported to be holding 200 Iraqis in detention for refusing to take part in the assault on Fallujah. These Iraqis are described as members of the 36th Battalion of the ICDC. The 36th Battalion is an interesting unit, supposedly made up of members the miitias of SCIRI, the INC, INA and Kurdish pershmergas.
Con artist and neocon darling Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi Puppet Council made this statement in a phone interview with the Council on Foreign Relations
There’s been a lot of publicity about the fighting in Falluja and in the south, but what is going on in Baghdad and the Iraqi Governing Council? Are you working on, the build-up to the June 30 transition?
No. We’re working now on how to stop the fighting, provide relief to civilians, uphold the rule of law, and also take stock of the security apparatus of the Iraqi government and move forward, learning the lessons from the recent fighting.Describe the fighting going on.
There are two kinds of fighting going on. There is a sustained effort by the coalition forces in the Falluja area to systematically and rigorously find the criminals who killed and burned the U.S. contractors [on March 31], and also to disarm the terrorists that are found in Falluja. [The interview occurred about 12 hours before a temporary halt in the fighting in Falluja was announced April 9]. That is being conducted systematically and with the cooperation of the Iraqi 36th battalion of the ICDC [Iraqi Civil Defense Corps], which has demonstrated its capability and its courage in the current crisis.And they’re in Falluja?
They’re in Falluja now.
They’re fighting together with the U.S. Marines?
Yes.
Busted again. Then again, maybe Chalabi’s INC is the only part of the 36th fighting. Maybe not all of the 36th refused, only the ones with honor and integrity.
This issue of the 36th fighting in Fallujah very much concerns Iraqis, especially the question of whether the Kurdish pershmerga are involved. I posted this picture on my blog of Kurdish peshmerga patrolling Fallujah. Raed Jarrar later posted about the question of the peshmerga collaborating with the Marines, implying that this would be a divisive issue for Iraqis, possibly pitting Kurds against Arabs if it became known. I emailed Raed about the picture of the peshmerga and he linked it on his blog. Immediately, my blog was inundated with thousands of hits from Raed’s site, several Iraqi sites and email lists and blogs linked and thousands of people viewed the picture and subsequent posts on the subject. I think it is fair to conclude that this may be an explosive issue. It is still difficult to piece together exactly what has happened in Fallujah – who fought and who didn’t and the timeline is murky. One thing I should make clear, this 36th ICDC battalion and the Iraqis in detention in Fallujah are not the Iraqis who refused to fight a few days ago and turned around and returned to their base. That particular story was about an Army battalion.
The Sydney Morning Herald and Islam OnLine are both carrying this account of 200 Iraqis held in detention by the Marines. I’ll try to update this post if any more information surfaces.