On March 31, four American security contractors were killed in Falluja and their bodies mutilated. The US response was to lock down the entire city of 300,000 and mount a protracted, military campaign against it.

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That is not hard to believe when one contemplates the firepower the US trained on Falluja: airforce F-15E and F-16 warplanes, F-14 and F-18 fighter-bombers - between them dropping three dozen 500-pound laser-guided bombs in the space of 48 hours - Super Cobra helicopters unloading Hellfire missiles, AC-130 gunships pounding trucks and cars with howitzers, snipers at every turn, and all of it watched by Britain's own Tornado jets, patrolling the skies overhead.

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If the battle of Jenin merited a UN inquiry, then surely the shooting-gallery of Falluja requires one too. If the more than 2,880 Palestinian deaths of the intifada since September 2000 are to be properly mourned, then so, surely, are the 30,000-60,000 Iraqi casualties the US military reckons it inflicted in the opening weeks of the war, according to Woodward. As George Bush tells the author: "We had just been mowing them down."

If we condemn Israel, then let's also condemn America and Britain. For now we are occupiers, too.

The UN's Special Rapporteur on Human Rights has told AM the proposed Fallujah inquiry is just as necessary as the inquiry into torture allegations that's been ordered by President George W. Bush.

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Paul Hunt is Special Rapporteur with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

PAUL HUNT: One of the difficulties is that for some weeks, Fallujah was shielded from any effective international scrutiny. There were these terrible murders and the terrible mutilation of the four American personnel right at the end of March, and since then, for some weeks, Fallujah was just about cut off.

It was very difficult for independent monitors to be able to report on events in Fallujah, so that's why I think it's especially important that there's a mechanism established as soon as possible, which is independent and impartial, to find out what the facts are.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The top US military commander General Richard Myers has said many times that his military operation is one of the most humane and one of the most civilised in modern times. American forces obviously believe they're doing everything they can to reduce to human death and injury in Fallujah. Is that enough?

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I mean, it's absolutely right, and to the credit of the authorities in Iraq, that there have been, and there now are some additional inquiries into these allegations of torture. That's as it should be. Well, if they demand investigation, and they certainly do, then these allegations into Fallujah, for sure, demand investigation.

TONY EASTLEY: Paul Hunt, Special Rapporteur from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, speaking from London with Rafael Epstein.

PAUL HUNT: Well, if that's the case, they've got nothing to fear in an independent, impartial inquiry, and such an inquiry would dispel misinformation and show that these allegations that are being made are false.

Bessam Jarrah, a Baghdad surgeon who has been coordinating efforts to send volunteer physicians to treat the wounded in Fallujah, told the LA Times: "In the first months of the occupation, we, the educated people, thought America would show us a humanitarian way, a political way, to solve problems. But America is using Saddam's approach to problems: brute force."

He added that the US occupiers had "lost the war on April 9 this year - that is what Iraqis feel".

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The hatred of the US occupiers expressed by the shopkeepers interviewed by the NYT, however, is widespread among Iraqi working people. The April 11 NYT cited the comments of Maneer Munthir, a 35-year-old labourer in Baghdad, as being typical of the views of working-class Iraqis: "Americans are attacking Shiite and Sunni at the same time. They have crossed a line. I had to get a gun."

The article added that while many Iraqis "said that they did not consider themselves full-time freedom fighters" - because they "have jobs in vegetable shops, offices, garages and schools" - when "the time comes, they say they will line up behind their leaders - with guns" - against the US occupiers.

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The May 1 London Daily Telegraph reported that US commanders "argued that there had been no deal with the insurgents and the marines leaving the city were not handing over control but simply 'repositioning' their forces". However, it added that US troops and tanks had "left Fallujah after pulling down barbed wire defences around the soft drinks factory where they had set up a base for the past three weeks. Up to 80 marines remained but were expected to withdraw to a base outside Fallujah last night."

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The Qatar-based Arabic satellite TV station Aljazeera, which had reporters in Fallujah throughout the US seige, commented on May 1: "After promising to 'liberate' Fallujah for the second time in a year, the US failed to do so and as they retreat the Fallujah fighters are viewing this as a military victory against the occupation forces."

It added that the US decision to hand over Fallujah to an Iraqi-commanded military force "sets a dangerous precedent" for the US-led occupation forces "as if/when other cities turn against the occupation they will know if they can beat the siege for long-enough they will soon get their own Iraqi army back into their town".

In parts of Falluja you could still smell death in the air. Many hundreds of Iraqis civilians are believed to have died during the course of the fighting.

In one area, Jolan - the scene of the fiercest fighting - I saw houses that had been completely flattened by American bombs.

There was a lot of anger there. I spoke to one man who said he was just locking up his door, and had just got his family out of the house, when a bomb hit. It destroyed his house - and he was injured in the leg.

He told me the bombing was everywhere - it was random. He said he had nothing to do with the resistance, he had no weapons.

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The original American demand had been that Falluja hand over those who had been responsible for killing the four Americans but we simply don't know if that is still a demand.

It seems that for the moment the Americans are relieved themselves that the fighting is over, because it was a costly battle for their forces too - although city residents came off much worse with the might of the world's military superpower brought to bear on them.

The irony is that the Americans have had to turn to former soldiers in Saddam's army - who only a year ago they were celebrating victory over - to restore order in Falluja.

I was told the day before our visit, the fighters had been parading through town in a sort of victory parade, and that people had felt proud of them standing up to the might of the American army.

Falluja has become a symbol of resistance to the American occupation, and a focus of anger and of pride.

Amid the grief and the mourning, there is still a spirit of defiance.