U.S. says it will take Samarra before election

Thu., Sept. 9, 2004

Jim Krane Associated Press

TIKRIT, Iraq – One way or another, the U.S. Army and its Iraqi allies will seize the insurgent-held city of Samarra before January’s general election, the U.S. Army commander responsible for the city said Wednesday.

Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who leads the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, said he’s confident a combination of diplomacy, U.S. aid and Army intimidation will persuade the city’s 500 insurgents to give up.

If not, Batiste said, the Germany-based 1st Infantry will assault ancient Samarra, a former Islamic capital whose warrenlike center lies in the shadow of a spiral-shaped 9th century minaret.

“It’ll be a quick fight and the enemy is going to die fast,” Batiste said in an interview at his headquarters in a grandiose palace complex built by Saddam Hussein in Tikrit. “The message for the people of Samarra is: peacefully or not, this is going to be solved.”

Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, has been the biggest flashpoint in a tough swath of north-central Iraq controlled by the 1st Infantry Division.

Several recent signs give hope to a negotiated solution.

The general said he and division leaders spoke Tuesday with tribal leaders from the city and its surroundings. He said those leaders, who also have met with interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, have been leaning on the guerrillas. In turn, some leaders of the insurgency already have brought their troops to heel.

Allawi and U.S. ground commander Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz also have said they are optimistic that Samarra will be relinquished without a repeat of April’s disastrous siege of Fallujah or August’s brutal assault on Najaf. Thousands of Iraqis were killed in those operations and city blocks were blasted to rubble.

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U.S. says it will take Samarra before election

Jesse Tinsley

Jim Meehan

Molly Quinn

Rob Curley

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