As soon as the women of Fallouja learned that four Americans had been killed, their bodies mutilated, burned and strung up from a bridge, they knew a terrible battle was coming.They filled their bathtubs and buckets with water. They bought sacks of rice and lentils. They considered that they might soon die. “When we heard the news,” said Turkiya Abid, 62, a mother of 15, “we began to say the Shahada,” the Muslim profession of faith. There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God. In Washington, the reaction to the March 31 killings was exactly what the women of Fallouja had expected: anger. Those inside George W. Bush’s White House believed that the atrocity demanded a forceful response, that the United States could not sit still when its citizens were murdered.Full Story