Turning the war over to the Iraqis: Stay on schedule

FOR many Americans, an assurance by the top U.S. commander in Iraq that local forces are ready to assume security duties is less important than moving our troops out of harm's way.

Such is the significance of today's scheduled withdrawal of American forces from populated areas.

Congress began pestering the Bush administration in earnest about a deadline for leaving Iraq after the November 2006 congressional elections. The president responded in January 2007 with a surge of U.S. military power, a noun without the historical baggage of escalation.

In addition to the infusion of a robust number of troops — sought by U.S. military commanders before the war began — Americans had been reshaping the effort on the ground among rival civilian populations.

The pullback from Iraqi cities and towns that officially begins today is pointed toward a withdrawal of all combat troops by August 2010 and the exit of all U.S. forces from the country by Dec. 31, 2011.

Words and definitions matter in the eventual arithmetic of leaving Iraq. Although U.S. troop strength has stayed around 130,000, the number of soldiers designated as trainers has surged from 10,000 to 50,000.

Even as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has declared a great victory against the foreign occupiers, he has U.S. troops on speed dial if conditions overtake local capabilities.

A better word than surge to describe conditions that allow for a lower American profile might be engagement. Approaches were made to factions that had previously battled U.S. forces. Sunni neighborhood groups, organized as Awakening Councils, were trusted and empowered to defend their families and homes against al-Qaida insurgents and others.

Murderous tensions still exist between Shiites, who rule the government, and Sunnis, who held power under Saddam Hussein, but there has been a transition to protecting Iraqi home turf. These Sons of Iraq also went on the payroll, with U.S. taxpayers spending more than $300 million to keep them employed as homegrown security forces.

Iraq in transition will be a dangerous place of factional challenges and testing of central authority and its capacities. A bomb blast Wednesday in a Sadr City market killed 76 persons and injured 156. Also this past week, a truck bomb in northern Iraq, a relatively stable area, killed 68.

The U.S. has spent handsomely to train, equip and invest in Iraqi security forces, and that relationship will not change for years. A formal disengagement of American forces from the war is overdue but welcome news.