WASHINGTON — The Navy’s next amphibious strike shipment will be named after the city of Fallujah, which saw some of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq War as U. S. Marines battled al-Qaeda extremists in deadly house-to-house clashes.
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said the USS Fallujah would commemorate what is known as the “First and Second Battles of Fallujah,” following the culture of naming attack ships after the battles of the Marine Corps or other early sailboats and aircraft carriers.
“It is an honor to commemorate the Marines, Infantrymen and coalition partners who fought bravely and sacrificed their lives in the two battles of Fallujah,” del Toro said Tuesday.
Located about forty-five miles from Baghdad, the city was the base of a Sunni anti-government insurgency after the 2003 U. S. -led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. two bloody battles with U. S. troops in Fallujah in 2004 that killed more than a hundred Americans and wounded more than 1,000.
The First Battle of Fallujah sparked further violence in the city, adding the deaths of five American infantrymen hit by a roadside bomb and 4 security contractors running for Blackwater USA.
The contractors were killed and their bodies set on fire. Two of the bodies were hung from a bridge and photographs of the carnage were distributed to the media.
In response, Marines fought for days to take the city and, at a turning point, a Marine vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a mosque, wounding five Marines.
U. S. forces converged on the mosque and eventually fired a Hellfire missile at its minaret base, and an F-16 fighter jet dropped a 500-pound bomb, killing dozens and fueling anti-American sentiment. Within a month, however, U. S. forces withdrew from Fallujah and into the hands of local Iraqi security forces.
The time the war took position in November 2004 and was a major air and ground offensive through American forces, as well as British and Iraqi troops, to take the city. Dozens of Americans and a lot of militants were killed and large portions of the city were broken and destroyed.
An Iraqi journalist in the city at the time told The Associated Press: “People are even afraid to look out the window because of the snipers. . . Americans shoot at everything that moves. “
Gen. Richard Myers, who is now retired but was chairman of the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, said “lots and lots of insurgents” had been killed and captured. He said Fallujah’s offensive was “very, very successful” but would not end the insurgency.
“If you think Fallujah is going to be the end of the insurgency in Iraq, that has never been the goal, never our intention and never our hope,” he said.
A decade later, the city once again became a fatal hotbed of insurgency when the Islamic State organization took control, beginning its dramatic flash across Iraq. It took only two years and the access of American forces to the country to rebuild Iraq. army, to retake the city in a step toward driving Islamic State militants out of major Iraqi cities.
In addition to delivering the ship’s call, Del Toro said the long-term sponsor of the USS Fallujah will be Donna Berger, who is the wife of Navy Commander Gen. David Berger.