Fear still rules Iraq by Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times 9:35am 19th Apr, 2004   Fallujah. April 19, 2004    It was a roadside debate involving an Iraqi couple and four US marines. It won't merit a footnote in the history of the US struggle with the insurgents who hold much of this city in their grip. But it demonstrated the difficulties marines are having in persuading Iraqis to help them.    The incident started early on Friday morning when an Iraqi, followed dutifully by his wife, approached Lieutenant Michael Scott, 26, for help crossing the marine checkpoints restricting the flow of traffic into Fallujah.    The man, about 50, needed to drive his truck into town to help some relatives and to bring food back to his family in the village of Saqlawiyah. He gave the impression that he wanted to help the Americans if only they would help him.    Lieutenant Scott agreed and scribbled a note allowing the man to pass. He hoped that, in return, the man would later provide information about insurgents hiding in the countryside and smuggling arms and fighters into the city.    Each day the US launches unmanned surveillance planes to track insurgents. Phone lines are tapped and leaflets and public address announcements urge Iraqis to give information. But that is not enough. "Until you get some human intelligence, you really can't get anywhere (stopping the insurgents)," Lieutenant Scott said.    Once the man and his wife had entered the city in their battered, bullet-pocked 1985 truck, Lieutenant Scott returned to the marine outpost.    Hoping to ingratiate himself with the couple and their relatives, he gathered a lot of food and, organising a convoy, headed towards the couple's home in the farm belt that encircles much of Fallujah.    His convoy arrived before the couple had returned home, so the marines began handing out food to at least three dozen children and some adults. Children tussled happily for sweets as marines threw handfuls into the air. But one adult pleaded with them to leave lest insurgents learn of their visit and take retribution later. A young girl began crying and flailing her arms. The marines left.    Then a call came through on the radio - the man and his wife, while on their way home, had been wounded in an attack several kilometres away. Their truck had been shot up so, despite their injuries, they were trying to walk back to the village before the curfew.    Both had been hit by shrapnel, the woman in her arms, the man in his back. Both had been treated by navy medics.    Lieutenant Scott rerouted his convoy to the site and greeted the man. The wife was weeping and shaking her head. The man was distraught. He said he had been hit by US fire and that his truck, which he needed to support his seven daughters and three sons, was ruined.    Lieutenant Scott struggled to explain through an interpreter that the shrapnel had to have come from an insurgent's mortar. The effort failed.    He offered to replace the truck with one that had been confiscated from insurgents. The man refused. To take the truck would mark him as a friend of the marines and he and his family could be killed.    He did, however, want his truck towed to his farm. But the marines said they could not tow it because it had been abandoned in an area thick with insurgents. The man said he would instead accept money and quoted a price that translated into upward of $US5000 ($A6700). Too much, Lieutenant Scott said.    He sought to bargain, telling the man that the marines wanted to help him but had to be helped in return. "I don't want to help either side, the US or the others, both will shoot me," the man said.    In the end, nothing was resolved. The man and his wife accepted a ride towards their village - close enough to walk home but far enough away so that neighbours would not see them accepting aid from Americans.    - Los Angeles Times
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