From the television reporting (mostly BBC World) and newspaper articles, the situation appears to be fairly unique in that no other instances have been reported of Iraqi's out "celebrating" Saddam Hussein's birthday. The protest appeared to be about the use of the school by US forces as their base in the town.

Factors to be taken into account include:
1. Fallujah is a town where the Ba'athist Regime enjoyed strong support.
2. The town was not affected to any great extent by military action during the recent war.
3. The town is the location of sites suspected of involvement with Saddam's weapons programmes.
4. When American forces arrived in the town, the mayor suggested they use the school building as a headquarters.
5. No Iraqi civilian police presence.
6. No interpreters present.
7. Troops involved are Airbourne (82nd)
8. The amount of "unauthorised" weaponry available
9. The method by which ex-Iraqi servicemen (Army, Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard and Saddam Feddayeen) returned to "civilian life".

As to what happened and why, no doubt the perception of damn near everyone who was there will differ to varying degrees. The one thing that will be consistant will be that each fully believed in their reasons for reacting as they did. The important thing for the future is to put in place the means by which repetition is rendered less likely.

"Hearts and Minds" programmes are tricky things to initiate and require a great deal of effort to make work. The American brass are not very good at it - they never have been. Airbourne troops do not make good "temporary policemen" in a civil environment, it is not their fault it is the fault of their training.

The demands of the residents for the Americans to quit the school, is, I believe, fairly reasonable and rational - they want life to return to normality - that includes children going to school. The coalition forces should have in place sufficient engineering units to throw up a secure base area that does not interfere with civilian life in Fallujah - that should be done as quickly as possible. The unit - in fact NO unit - should be operating without accompanying civilian Iraqi Police officers or Interpreters. Three very important things that seemed to be totally lacking in this situation - Dialogue, understanding and restraint.

From GUEST Steve above:

<<"There were a lot of people who were armed and who were throwing rocks. How is a U.S. soldier to tell the difference between a rock and a grenade?" Nantz said.

- doesn't one go bang? - >>

One of them certainly does go bang Steve - But by the time it does it is generally too bloody late for the squaddie that the Lt-Col is talking about.

MGOH says:

"No doubt in the wake of this, young Iraqis are lining up to night to join the Iraqi equivalent of the IRA."

In doing so they would be making the worst possible mistake of their lives. Not only for themselves but for their communities and their country in general.