Play lays bare U.S. offensive in Falluja

By Luke Baker

LONDON (Reuters) - Few military operations in Iraq have caused more death, destruction and divisiveness than the dual U.S. assaults on Falluja in 2004.

In April and November that year, more than 10,000 U.S. soldiers and marines overran the city, just outside Baghdad, in an attempt to rid it of the insurgents they said had taken it over and turned it into a den of militancy.

A new play in London casts a scathing eye over America's actions, calling into question its motives and accusing it of using chemical weapons on Iraqi civilians -- one of more than 70 alleged breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

Drawing on interviews with residents, U.S. soldiers who fought there and first-hand accounts, "Fallujah", directed by Jonathan Holmes, paints a portrait of vengeance meted out by violent American troops fed up with intransigent Iraqis.

As one character, a U.S. sniper, says: "At home when I go hunting, it's sport. Here when I go hunting, it's personal."

The play, staged inside a former factory with the audience standing as the action takes place among them, is told through the eyes of journalists who covered the Falluja assault, aid workers who tried to help out, politicians and military leaders.

Cameramen film parts of the action and project it on to TV screens as if it was real news footage, while military trucks and mannequins in uniform are used to create atmosphere.

It opens with Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state, justifying Washington's "war on terror" as she explains to an interviewer from Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera why the conflict in Iraq will reshape the Middle East for the better.