Rebuilding promised to Fallujah residents

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqi officials announced plans Thursday for a massive compensation program to rebuild thousands of homes damaged or destroyed during the recent conquest of Fallujah – a battle they said killed more than 2,000 insurgents.

“All the people of Fallujah will be compensated by the government, and all those whose homes have sustained damage will have them repaired or rebuilt by the government,” Industry Minister Hachim Hassani said.

Although Hassani didn’t state specific figures, the bill for the reconstruction campaign is likely to be massive, given the near-total destruction in many parts of the city.

Hassani, head of a joint ministerial committee overseeing reconstruction efforts in Al Anbar province, which includes Fallujah, said the government is preparing to care for as many as 300,000 refugees of Fallujah who fled to neighboring towns before the assault.

Minister of State and de facto national security adviser Kasim Daoud defended the ferocity of the Fallujah assault as not only necessary, but in sync with the wishes of the Iraqi people.

“I doubt that there is any sympathy for these terrorists from ordinary Iraqi citizens,” he said. “We tried to deal with them in a peaceful manner, but they took it as a sign of weakness on the part of the Iraqi government. This is why we are forced to take a tough stance now.”

Daoud said 90 percent of Fallujah was under control. Cleanup operations were expected to eliminate pockets of resistance in the southeastern neighborhoods within “a few days,” said Daoud, who placed the most recent estimate of insurgents killed in Fallujah at 2,085. Another 1,300 suspected fighters remain in detention.

As military operations wind down in Fallujah, the Iraqi government announced plans to meet with former high-ranking Baath Party members in exile.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zubeiri, returning from a recent international conference on Iraq in Sharm el Shiek, Egypt, said several Arab governments had asked him bring exile Baathists into the country’s fledgling and fragile political process.

Zubeiri didn’t give specifics on the timing of the meetings, or who would be invited. But he said the talks would be held in Jordan and would exclude anyone actively involved in the Iraq’s insurgency.

“We want to expand the participation of those Iraqis, as long as they denounce terror,” he said.