US hands back province to Iraq

The American military handed over responsibility for the security of the western province of Anbar...

The American military handed over responsibility for the security of the western province of Anbar, once a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency and one of the most violent regions in Iraq, to the Iraqi Government on Monday, a long-delayed milestone.

The transfer was made possible, Iraqi and American officials said, by an increase in Iraqi security forces and a reduction of violence largely attributed to the local forces known as Awakening Councils. It is the first handover of a province bordering Baghdad, where there has been intense sectarian conflict. Other provinces that have been shifted to Iraqi control have been in the less troublesome south and in the northern Kurdish region.

The transfer ceremony took place in the center of this city, which two years ago had been destroyed by almost daily battles between the American military and insurgents. Now, Ramadi has been rebuilt, and the number of deaths of American soldiers has fallen virtually to zero.

8220;You have lost a lot of blood and life to reach this day,8221; said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq8217;s national security advisor. 8220;This would have been a dream tow or three years ago. This was the cradle of the al-Qaeda.8221;

President Bush hailed the handover. In a statement released by the White House, he credited 8220;the courage of our troops, the Iraqi Security Forces, and the brave tribes and other civilians from Anbar who worked alongside them8221;.

The US military has been reducing the number of American troops in Anbar, to 25,000 from 37,000 in February, and the Iraqi police force has grown to 28,000, up from 5,000 three years ago, according to the Marine Corps.

American forces were originally scheduled to transfer control in late June, but the transfer was postponed. At the time, American military officials said that a dust storm had made it impossible to fly dignitaries in for a ceremony and that the postponement was unrelated to a suicide bombing near Falluja a day earlier that killed 20 people.

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In July, the Anbar Provincial Council asked the American military to delay turning over security for at least a year, saying that Iraqi forces were not prepared to keep tight control of the province8217;s borders. The appeal was widely perceived as stemming from a bitter dispute between the Iraqi Islamic Party, which has long been politically dominant in Anbar, and the increasingly powerful Awakening Council forces backed by the Americans.

The Awakening Councils were drawn to large extent from the ranks of Sunni Arab insurgents who had fallen out with leaders of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group that American intelligence agencies have concluded is foreign-led. The Awakening forces took issue with the other group8217;s violent tactics and religious extremism, and were paid by the American military to provide security.

The councils are credited with reducing crime and violence in Anbar, but have recently come under attack by the Iraqi Army, which is controlled by the Shiite government in Baghdad.

The Government8217;s campaign has been particularly pronounced lately in the area west of Baghdad, where the Iraqi Army has arrested scores of Awakening members. Former insurgent leaders have contended that the Iraqi military is pursuing 650 Awakening leaders, many of whom have fled.