Aswat al-Iraq reports this morning:

Marines withdraw from posts in Ramadi, Iraqi forces take over

"The U.S. Marines evacuated their positions in the province building and other government facilities overlooking the main street in central Ramadi, (110 km) west of Baghdad," Maj. Muhammad Ahmed of the province security force told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

After the Iraqi army and police forces took over, the main street in central Ramadi was opened to ease traffic that suffered congestions during the past period, Ahmed said.

The source did not elaborate on the military positions to which the U.S. Marines moved but said "the U.S. withdrawal came upon demands by the Iraqi administrative and military officials."

Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, has witnessed since the spring of 2004 ferocious battles between gunmen on one hand and U.S. and Iraqi forces on the other. Large numbers of casualties were caused on either side as a result of the clashes that also caused the collapse of the infrastructure in the city, which now enjoys relative calm.

The last two or three times they tried this it didn’t work out so well. Here’s hoping this time is the charm.

What could go wrong?

If a man had a history book, or maybe just a really good memory, he’d remark that we’ve been arming and training those tribesmen since some time late last year, somewhere between August, when COL Sean MacFarland discovered how much influence Sheikh Abdul Sittar had in Anbar, and December, when the Time article was published. In just over half a year, we’ve apparently accumulated these tribal forces, armed, paid, and trained them, and they’ve cleaned up the mess in the Wild West that we were so hysterical about last week, when people realized that the Bu$h malAdministration was intentionally conflating “al Qaeda” with nationalist insurgents.

In any case, the campaign has been wildly successful, as GEN Peter Pace announced yesterday. (See my article below “On Pondering Miracles”.) Contrast that with the 3 plus years we’ve been arming, paying, and training the Shiite national police and Iraqi Army. Those dudes are still incapable of doing much more than setting up independent death squads and capping Sunnis at checkpoints. Most of them are not able to go on independent patrols, and frequently don’t even show up when assigned to joint patrols with US forces.

It has to work this time. GEN Pace said so himself last month:

"To them, the hard work of getting rid of al-Qaida is done," Pace said. "Now they want to get on with their lives."

Earlier in the day Pace met with U.S. commanders in Baghdad, as well as Marine Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin, who is responsible for all of Anbar province, and Army Col. John Charlton, whose 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division has ushered in the changes in Ramadi and environs.

"What I'm hearing right now is a sea change that's taken place in many places here, that it's no longer a matter of pushing al-Qaida out of Ramadi, for example but rather, now that they have been pushed out, helping the local police and local army have a chance to get their feet on the ground," he said. [emph added]