ANBAR PROVINCE HAS BEEN A PROBLEM SINCE WE INVADED

After reading the depressing recent Marine report on the situation in Anbar Province, I began thinking that this wasn't anything new, so I decided to search Newsbank for early reports about problems in Anbar. I looked for "Anbar Province" and "insugents" and I searched from March 20, 2003 to today. I found 11,604 articles but many of them are duplicates because, for example, several papers may run the same AP article.

The earliest report was from August, 2003:

Culture clash sparks tension in Iraq
Mobile Register (AL)
August 10, 2003
Culture clash sparks tension in Iraq People there want U.S. soldiers to be polite and respectful, but that can be a tall order after you've been shot at
By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI
Associated Press Writer

JAZEERAT EL-ANBAR, Iraq - The tribal leader had just been freed after 12 days in an American prison. Well-wishers flocked to his house. They kissed his cheek. They cried. Mostly, they cursed their U.S. occupiers.

Sheik Saad Naif Mish'hen al-Hardan, wearing a yellow Arab robe, looked pale and dazed. The al-Daylami tribe was deeply insulted that U.S. forces arrested al-Hardan, and in front of his people.

The town of Jazeerat el-Anbar sits across the Euphrates River from Ramadi, a hotbed of anti-American resistance. On average, insurgents have killed a U.S. soldier nearly every other day since President Bush declared major fighting over May 1.

U.S. forces are on edge. When attacked, they shoot back, sometimes hitting the innocent. To quell the insurgency, American troops raid homes in broad sweeps, arresting anyone caught in their net.

The detained Iraqis - mostly bystanders in the wrong place at the wrong time - complain U.S. troops are heavy-handed, apparently unaware they are sowing deep seeds of resentment by humiliating proud tribesmen.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, leader of U.S. forces in Iraq, said last week he ordered a change of tactics, directing commanders to go after specific targets rather than staging wide sweeps.

"American culture differs from ours. Things that seem to be acceptable to us may be vulgar to them and the other way around," said Mohammed Latif, a Sunni Muslim cleric in nearby Ramadi, a conservative and deeply tribal Sunni city about 60 miles west of Baghdad. Lt. Col. Henry Kievernaar, commander of the 3rd Squadron of 3rd Armored Cavalry Infantry in Ramadi, agreed. "All the issues between us" stem from a "lack of communication," he said.

That costs lives on both sides and is making Anbar province more radical.


Less than a month later, there's this report:

IRAQI GUERRILLA CELLS RECRUIT CIVILIANS AND EX-SOLDIERS
The Miami Herald
September 7, 2003
Author: TRACY WILKINSON, Los Angeles Times Service

In their shadowy guerrilla war to drive U.S. forces out of Iraq, hundreds of insurgents have organized into cells, especially in the Anbar province north and west of Baghdad, and the Diyala province to the east, both strongholds for Saddam Hussein, the Sunni tribes that supported him, and Wahhabi and other Islamic fundamentalists.

Despite the U.S. government's insistence that Iraq has become the new battlefield of global terror, most of the resistance is home-grown. The guerrillas are militants from the deposed regime, but they are also ordinary Iraqis opposed to occupation. They are ex-intelligence officers and farmers; militiamen and merchants; bombers and fishers, according to more than a dozen interviews with Americans and Iraqis.

Later in September, there's this report:

Friendly fire kills 8 Iraqis
U.S. soldiers mistake police for insurgents.
Columbia Daily Tribune (MO)
September 12, 2003

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - U.S. soldiers mistakenly opened fire on a group of Iraqi policemen chasing bandits today, killing eight Iraqis and wounding seven, witnesses said. It was the deadliest friendly fire incident since the end of major fighting.

There were other unconfirmed reports of violence in the Fallujah region today after a message carrying Saddam Hussein's name appeared on at least one building in Fallujah.

The message praised the people of the city for their resistance to the U.S. occupation and named it the capital of al-Anbar province. The nearby city of Ramadi is the capital of the Sunni-dominated al-Anbar province.

Near the end of the month, there's this report:

Troops foil Syria border crossing
Mobile Register (AL)
September 30, 2003
Author: HAMZA HENDAWI; Associated Press Writer

Guarding against cross-border infiltrators from Syria, where the regime has been harshly critical of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, has become a high priority in the battle against insurgents who are attacking American forces daily in the Sunni heartland to the west and north of Baghdad as well as in the capital itself.

According to L. Paul Bremer, America's top official in Iraq, the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq is the biggest obstacle to reconstruction efforts. Out of 248 foreign fighters captured by U.S. forces, he said, almost half came from Syria. The detainees include 19 suspected members of the al-Qaida terror network.

The soldiers are responsible for all of al-Anbar Province, a vast and mainly desert region where U.S. forces have met stiffest resistance.


There are several for October but this one exemplifies most of them:

Commander reports increase in attacks on forces in Iraq
Bucks County Courier Times (Levittown, PA)
October 23, 2003

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi insurgents have stepped up attacks on U.S. troops in recent weeks, the commander of American forces said yesterday, as ambush bombers struck again in this tense Sunni Muslim area west of Baghdad, in the northern city of Mosul and in the heart of the capital.

The U.S. commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said some of the attacks may be carried out by people with links to al-Qaida, but he added "we don't have any confirmed al-Qaida operatives in custody at this point."

Sanchez, the American commander, acknowledged that attacks against his troops have increased in the last three weeks, especially in Anbar province which includes Fallujah.