Hacksaw's Blog

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/02/iraq.us
foreignpolicy

US hands back control of Anbar to Iraqi forces

· President Bush hails transfer of Sunni province
· Move to watching brief could cut troop numbers

Ian Black, Middle East editor

The Guardian, Tuesday September 2 2008

Article history

Major John Kelly and Anbar governor Mamun Sami Rasheed sign handover documents in Ramadi yesterday. Photograph: Wathiq Khuzaie/Reuters

Iraqi security forces took control of Sunni Anbar province from the US military yesterday, a milestone in moves to wind down the American presence in a key area that was an insurgent stronghold.

Iraqi troops paraded with flags flying at a formal handover ceremony in the provincial capital Ramadi, once a byword for vicious fighting, though underlying political tensions are yet to be resolved.

"This war is not quite over, but it's being won and primarily by the people of Anbar," declared the US commander, Marine Major General John Kelly. "Al-Qaida has not been entirely defeated in Anbar, but their end is near and they know it. What Anbar needs now, what will end this conflict and prevent al-Qaida from ever coming back, is economic development, reconstruction and funds for compensation."

In Washington President George Bush praised the achievement, saying that the province had been "transformed and reclaimed by the Iraqi people".

Anbar, which is mostly desert, extends from the western outskirts of Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It saw some of the bloodiest fighting after the 2003 invasion, including two assaults by US forces on Falluja.

About one third of US fatalities in Iraq, 1,305 troops, have been in Anbar, more than 40% of them by improvised explosive devices.

It is the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces but the first majority Sunni one to be handed over to the Shia-led Baghdad government.

US forces are to remain but in a limited "overwatch" role in which they will cut back on security patrols and focus on training Iraq's army and police. The US has 28,000 soldiers in Anbar, down from 37,000 in February, while the number of Iraqi soldiers and police has grown to 37,000 from 5,000 three years ago.

The handover is expected to help the US cut troop levels in Iraq at a time when there is pressure to boost forces in Afghanistan, where violence is now worse.

"We would not have even imagined this in our wildest dreams three or four years ago," said the Iraqi national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie.

"If we had said we were going to hand over security responsibility from foreign troops to civilian authority people would laugh at us."

The handover had been scheduled for June but was delayed by a row between local leaders and a bomb attack in Ramadi. Anbar was the bastion of al-Qaida in Iraq and its renegade Jordanian leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who used the area as a staging-ground for attacks in Baghdad until he was killed in a 2006 US airstrike. Two years ago a US intelligence report concluded that al-Qaida had made such inroads that the war was lost in Anbar.

The tide began to turn in late 2006, when Sunni tribal leaders alienated by al-Qaida atrocities changed sides, forming US-funded "awakening councils" that became a model for grassroots guard units across the country.

Security progress after the US troop surge has not been matched by internal political reconciliation. The Iraqi parliament has yet to pass a controversial election law that has been delayed by a dispute over the oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk.

Provincial elections - seen by both Washington and Baghdad as a key development - can be held this year only if agreement can be reached in the next two weeks.