Why Did Iraqis in Fallujah Vote For the Man Who Let the U.S. Destroy Their City?

In his insurgent days, Abdullah Messir would hear Fallujah's clerics decry the former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi as an infidel and a traitor.

But in last month's parliamentary elections, Messir and thousands of people from his city hailed Allawi as their leader, contributing to the electoral success of a politician who presided over a ferocious assault on Falluja, a former stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency.

Residents of the city interviewed by IWPR said they voted for Allawi because they feared the hegemony of Shia Arab parties backed by Iran and were frustrated with the pace of reconstruction.

The man blamed for destroying Fallujah six years ago was, they said, the best candidate for rebuilding it today.

"Our biggest problems are unemployment and still pending payouts for property that was destroyed in the fighting in 2004," said Messir, who took up work as a blacksmith after giving up the gun.

"People want a powerful prime minister who can squeeze compensation out of the central budget," he said, adding that Allawi could deliver on this score.

While Allawi is from a Shia Arab background, his Iraqiya bloc campaigned on a secular platform and included many leaders popular with the country's Sunni Arab minority.

"A secular Shia is better than a Sunni Islamist or a tribal leader," Messir said, echoing the views of many in the city. "Sunni leaders have been too weak to compete with the Shia and the Kurds."

Final results from the March 7th election, released last week, showed Iraqiya won the most seats nationwide, narrowly edging past its rival, a bloc led by current prime minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The outcome is being fiercely contested by Maliki, and arguments over the result and the formation of governing coalition are expected to take months.

Regardless of who forms the next government, Iraqiya has established itself as the strongest representative of the Sunni Arabs, sweeping the board in provinces to the north and west of Baghdad.

In Anbar province, of which Fallujah is a part, Iraqiya won 11 of the 14 seats. Of the six seats allocated for Fallujah itself, it won four.

The United States military's assault on Fallujah in late 2004 cost hundreds of lives and left thousands homeless. The operation, backed by Allawi who was prime minister at the time, was aimed at wresting control of the city from militants allied to al-Qaeda.

In a parliamentary election in 2005, much of Anbar province voted for Sunni Islamist leaders, who have slipped in and out of Baghdad coalitions that have been consistently dominated by Shia Islamist parties with ties to Tehran.

As the sectarian conflict peaked in the middle of the last decade, Iran replaced the U.S. as the biggest foreign threat to Sunni Arabs in Iraq.

The insurgency in Anbar province was eventually quelled by a US-backed tribal militia group, known as the Awakening Council. Leaders from the militia fared well in provincial elections last year.

In the latest election, however, residents of Fallujah said they voted for Iraqiya because previous leaders had failed to tackle problems that stemmed from the conflict.

They also said they wanted leaders who would counter Shia influence and curb corruption -- reflecting the shifting priorities of the Sunni Arabs since the U.S. military laid siege to Fallujah in November 2004.

Karim al-Dulaimi, who spent two years at a prison for insurgents, said the city's electricity and sewage systems were in desperate need of overhaul. He also complained that nothing had come of popular demands for a hospital to treat children who had suffered health problems since the fighting.

"We have big problems with corruption," he said. "Chieftains have taken control of the city on the pretext of imposing order. They consider themselves above the law… We voted for Iraqiya because it promised to fire corrupt officials and eradicate our suffering."