Union-Tribune

April 16, 2003

A1

Marines control uneasy Tikrit
   Residents return to city dazed, defeated; 'occupation' decried

By MARCUS STERN
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

TIKRIT, Iraq – There was no joy in Saddam Hussein's hometown yesterday.

Until early afternoon, most of the people in Tikrit were Marines. They were stationed on almost every corner with assault rifles and heavy machine guns.

Most of the residents had fled when ground fighting began several days ago. While some pockets of resistance remained yesterday, fighting largely had subsided.

At 1:30, the Marines began allowing people to re-enter the city. Even then, they forced the Iraqis to file into town one by one after they had crossed a badly damaged Tigris River bridge that serves as a central gateway to the city.

Marines frisked everyone for weapons.

"This isn't a liberation. It's an occupation," snapped one returnee.

Most came back dazed and defeated.

Hussein is a dictator, but he's their dictator.

He's from a village just outside Tikrit, and Tikrit has benefited amply because of its status as his hometown.

The battle for Tikrit was expected to be a ferocious last stand. But it didn't unfold that way. People fled. The Iraqi army evaporated. And the Marines were left to contend with only a small band of Hussein's irregular forces, known as the Fedayeen Saddam.

"When Baghdad fell, all of Iraq fell," said one returnee.

Most of those returning declined to identify themselves, saying it was unnecessary. Almost all decried the U.S. and British military campaign.

When asked if Hussein was still popular in Tikrit, one man answered brusquely, "Not only Tikrit, but all of Iraq."

Many also expressed desperation.

"We have no electricity, no water, no food, no medicine," said Gassan Faeq, who was returning after six days.

They blamed the United States.

Water had been restored in part of the city yesterday, but the electricity remained off. The food markets have been closed for several days but are likely to reopen quickly if what happened in other cities is an indication.

The city's hospital had been operating on two generators with 12 staff members since Friday, when the fighting began and the electricity stopped. Yesterday, it was providing only emergency medical care, including delivering a baby and treating a burn victim.

Residents with war injuries were no longer streaming through the door, said a doctor.

Twenty-one bodies lay on shelves in the morgue out back. Relatives had picked up 15 others. But those 36 didn't represent all of the civilians killed in the campaign for Tikrit because bodies were collected elsewhere, the doctor said.

On one shelf was a reminder of how much each casualty counts.

There lay a mother and small child, side by side, each badly burned. The child lay against her mother's side.

"It was a bomb," said the director of the morgue.

Tikrit had been the focus of extensive bombing in recent days. After the northern Iraq cities of Kirkuk and Mosul fell, coalition forces in the north were able to focus their attention on Tikrit.

B-52 bombers bound for Tikrit could be heard for several days.

For the most part, the strikes appeared surgical and directed at military targets. A radio and TV station were also destroyed.

Across the street from the demolished broadcast complex, a Navy corpsman from Camp Pendleton, Pedro Quiles, was putting three stitches in the wound of an Iraqi man who said Iraqi soldiers near Hussein's home village, Uja, had shot at the car he was in and killed his cousin.

The Iraqi soldiers then beat him and the others with their rifle butts, he said.

Hussein was born and raised in poverty in a mud-brick house in Uja.

Yesterday, on the banks of the Tigris, one of his palaces lay in ruins after being bombed. Another was spared from the bombing.

Both had marble interiors with great chandeliers. The bedrooms overlooking the Tigris were immense, with 20-foot-high ceilings. Even the bathrooms were vast, marble suites unto themselves.

A warm spring breeze blew across the Tigris, past a rose garden in full bloom, onto a portico of the palace's second floor and into a large ballroom.

The structures that were left were opulent reminders of the contrast between the way Hussein has lived and the impoverished lifestyle of those who still adore him.

Meanwhile, the Marines on the bridge were watching the returnees closely from behind their M-16s and sandbagged bunkers. The crowd was large, angry and impatient.

The returnees seemed indignant about having to wait for Marines to frisk them before they could return to their city and homes.

Residents complained about the tight security.

"Is George Bush liberating this city or conquering it?" asked one annoyed Iraqi. "It's clear to all the world that America came here to control the oil."

Another questioned the need for the security at all.

"These people are coming back very tired and this kind of inspection is difficult for them," he said.

Then the Marines got a sobering reminder of the dangers that still exist.

They arrested three men with AK-47 rifles and ammunition, demolition fuses and nuts and bolts. It appeared to be the makings of a suicide bomb, a Marine said.

Yesterday, life had changed forever for the people of Tikrit.

Said one Marine, "They realize there's a new sheriff in town."