“On April 29 [2004], the standoff in Fallujah [Iraq] was broken when General [James] Conway…brokered a deal in which responsibility for security in the city would be handed over to a new 1,000-man Iraqi militia, the Fallujah Protection Army (later named the Fallujah Brigade), headed by former Iraqi Army officers and staffed by former soldiers. In return, the Marines were able to withdraw from the city and from their frontline positions surrounding it, lifting the monthlong siege. The expectation, expressed by one Marine officer, was that the new militia, which would be subordinate to the First Marines and would report to General Conway, would be ‘committed to fighting and maintaining the peace in Fallujah.’ The reality would prove very different.”
– Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory, Page 239