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StrategyPage.com has an excellent analysis of how the U.S. took Fallujah. Here's a snippet, but I recommend you read the whole thing.
The anti-government gunmen had been hammered for weeks by JDAM smart bombs directed at buildings they had taken over for living quarters. Taking over buildings was quite common. Sometimes the owners of the home cooperated, sometimes they were just kicked out. The gunmen preferred seizing a house in a residential neighborhood, believing that the Americans would be reluctant to bomb where there were a lot of civilians. The newly introduced 500 pound JDAM quickly destroyed that notion, and several hundred gunmen as well. Numbers are still being compiled on how many gunmen were killed in Fallujah before November 8th, either by JDAMs, or attacks by AC-130 gunships or AH-64 helicopters. There were often several attacks a night in the weeks before November 8th. This was not only to kill hostile gunmen, but also to disrupt the defensive plans for the city. The gunmen were getting pretty paranoid about all those attacks. Some innocent Fallujans were killed by the gunmen, who were quick to finger anyone as an informer. But a lot of the targeting information came from electronic and video surveillance. A couple of dozen guys moving into a building for the night left visual signs that could be captured and correctly interpreted. Tapping into telephones, and even the use of commercial walkie-talkies by the gunmen, also provided clues as to where some of these guys were going to bunk down, and often die, that night.Posted by Ted at November 29, 2004 11:12 PM[...]
Fallujah was a battle won by better intelligence, as well as speed and superior training and leadership. The payoff was a huge amount of additional intelligence in the form of prisoner interrogations, captured documents and equipment. Moreover, the rapid, and one-sided nature of the battle, was a major blow to the Sunni Arab myth that they were winning their war to restore a Sunni Arab dictatorship in the country.