U.S. hands over Anbar control

RAMADI, Iraq — Two years ago, Anbar Province was the most lethal place for U.S. troops in Iraq, with a Marine or a soldier dying here nearly every day. The provincial capital, Ramadi, was a moonscape of rubble and ruins, and Islamic extremists controlled large pieces of territory.

On Monday, after a parade on a freshly paved street, U.S. commanders formally returned responsibility for keeping order in Anbar Province, once the heartland of the Sunni insurgency and the birthplace of al-Qaida in Iraq, to the Iraqi army and police force.

The transfer marked a dramatic milestone in America's plan to eventually hand over all 18 provinces to Iraqi control so U.S. troops can go home.

The 25,000 U.S. troops remaining in Anbar will focus on training Iraq's military and police forces and standing by to help if the Iraqis are unable to cope with any surge in violence.

The ceremony capped one of the starkest turnabouts in the country since the war began 5 ½ years ago.

In the past two years, the number of insurgent attacks in Anbar has dropped by more than 90 percent. Al-Qaida in Iraq has been severely degraded, if not crushed. Since February, U.S. commanders said they had cut the number of Marines and soldiers here by more than a third.

The transfer of authority codified a transformation that Iraqi and U.S. officers say has been in effect since April: The Iraqi army and police operate independently and retain primary responsibility for battling the insurgency and crime in Anbar.

The Americans, who had long done the bulk of the fighting, have stepped into a backup role. With the transfer Monday, Iraq now bears the primary responsibility for maintaining security in 11 of its 18 provinces.

"This war is not quite over, but it's being won and primarily by the people of Anbar. Al-Qaida has not been entirely defeated in Anbar, but their end is near and they know it," Marine Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the senior U.S. commander in Anbar, said during the handover ceremony.

Still, as the parade marched along Main Street, the signs seemed mostly good. The ceremony was a mostly Iraqi affair, with U.S. Marines and soldiers wearing neither helmets nor body armor, nor carrying guns.

The festive scene became an occasion for celebration by Iraqis and Americans, who at several moments wondered aloud in the sweltering heat how things had gone from so grim to so much better, so fast.

"Not in our wildest dreams could we have imagined this," said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national-security adviser, who flew in for the ceremony from Baghdad.

"Two or three years ago, had we suggested that the Iraqis could take responsibility, we would have been ridiculed ... ."