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North County Times - North San Diego and Southwest Riverside County columnists : "New Iraqi special forces join struggle in Fallujah
FALLUJAH, Iraq ---- When troops came banging on her door Wednesday, Fallujah resident Um Ahmad said she expected them to be some of the several hundred U.S. Marines who have been battling insurgents from a field near her government apartment building since Monday.
But when she opened the door, she was shocked to find an Iraqi face and hear an Arabic voice at her door instead.
Iraqi troops say her surprise has been a common reaction of Iraqi citizens to encounters with the newly formed Iraqi army special forces, who were first fielded in Baghdad in January and who made their debut Wednesday in Fallujah.
'They say, 'good!' ' said Iraqi special forces soldier Mazin Fallah, 25, one of the nearly 60 Iraqi special operations troops who searched several apartment buildings room by room Wednesday after the troops were shelled with mortars.
'They say they are surprised but glad we are fighting,' he said in the strained English he said he learned in college in Baghdad. 'They say Iraq needs an Iraqi army, not more terrorists.'
While the Iraqi troops sometimes confounded their U.S. Special Forces advisers who led them on Wednesday's operation, at least they showed up for the fight.
About 2,000 soldiers of the newly formed Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, who were paid by Marines last weekend, were supposed to help the 2,000-some Marines with a massive cordon of war-torn Fallujah this week.
But when heavy fighting erupted as the Marines arrived Monday near the city, all but about 20 of the Iraqi ICDC troops fled.
'It was a disappointment, yes,' said Capt. Phil Cushman, the Camp Pendleton Marine 'adviser' in charge of training, equipping and fielding the ICDC troops in Fallujah.
'They all sure showed up for payday,' said Marine Pfc. Henry Johnson, 19, of Dallas.
Lance Cpl. Lucas Burton, 21, of Salem, Ore., said he, too, was disappointed and felt a bit betrayed by the ICDC desertion, but he said he was heartened by the apparent willingness to fight displayed by the Iraqi special forces troops.
'I'd rather have a few of these guys anyway,' said Burton. He made the comment Wednesday before embarking on an operation into buildings near the edge of Fallujah, where he eventually joined a U.S. Special Forces sniper on a rooftop to help spot insurgents in nearby facing buildings."

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