Well it finally happened! MNF-I turned over the security folder to the IA today. Apparently, there was no sand storm to delay it. Here's the MNF-I press release...

JOINT STATEMENT

By Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and General David H. Petraeus
on the Transfer of Security Responsibility for Anbar Province

The United States and Multi-National Force-Iraq welcome the transfer of security in Anbar Province to Iraqi responsibility as a positive step on the path to Iraq's self-reliance.

Anbar is the eleventh province to be transferred to Iraqi security responsibility. The first province transferred to Government of Iraqi security control was Muthanna in July 2006, followed by Dhi Qar, An Najaf, Maysan, Irbil, Sulaymaniyah, Dahuk, Karbala, and most recently Basrah in December 2007.

The transfer of security responsibility in Anbar is significant because it is geographically the largest province in Iraq and borders three countries.

Iraqi Security Forces in Anbar have been operating independently for the past two months. Working with local government and military officials, they have demonstrated their readiness to assume responsibility for the provincial security of Al Anbar. Today this responsibility is theirs.

The transition of responsibility for security in Anbar Province is an important step. The provincial and military leadership in Anbar will have to work cooperatively in order to attain the sustainable security necessary for long term economic prosperity. We will assist as requested. The United States and Multi-National Force-Iraq congratulate the Government of Iraq on this important milestone.

Now, first, is it too soon? How will the Sahwa/Awakenings councils respond? Is the primarily Shiite IA prepared to handle the predominately Sunni populace in a fair and even-handed manner? Will Maliki pick up the tab in October for the Sahwa payroll the US has bankrolled? I fear that it is too soon, the IA won't play nice, and, Maliki has shown so far that he is unwilling to finance, nor, incorporate the Sahwa into the IA...

One report on the transfer highlights some of those concerns...

...While most praise the transition, some Iraqis are concerned that corrupt police and Al Qaeda remain a threat. "Now the major challenge is how to build on the victories and maintain the situation," says Sheikh Ali al-Hatem, one of the founders of the Awakening movement in Anbar. However, he is critical of the hand-over, saying that Iraqi and American politicians made a rushed decision. "The threat of Al Qaeda has not ended in Anbar," he says.[...]

"Many of the Al Qaeda operatives have just changed into a police uniform," says an Iraqi police colonel in Ramadi who has policed Iraq for 23 years. "Maybe they will go back to killing people if the situation changes."

Many of Anbar's police units were formed without thorough background checks, so a number of former criminals are now police officers, says the colonel. Additionally, some members of the Awakening Council were also incorporated into the police without screening and some high-ranking officers are illiterate or otherwise unqualified.[...]

"Al Qaeda will not appear wearing masks in the streets again," says the Iraqi police colonel. "They will appear as policemen, politicians, and soldiers. They will create cells within these organizations and they will reappear after they handover."

The Shiite-dominated central government has expressed concerns about the US-funded Awakening movement becoming a separate military force. It is taking steps to incorporate some of the men into the federal security forces.

Looking at another article...

...Even so, the dynamic that has brought such calm to Anbar, welcome as it is, appears fragile in some respects. Former insurgents who spent years laying ambushes for Americans now man local police stations, or remain on the American payroll as loosely supervised gunmen working for the so-called Sunni Awakening Councils. Beyond that, many local Sunni leaders claim that the prevailing political arrangements leave them under-represented, and they are demanding a greater share of the spoils. Some local Sunnis have warned that fresh provincial elections must go forward if more violence is to be averted.[...]

“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, we would have been laughed at. This was the cradle of the Sunni insurgency.”[...]

Today, nearly 100,000 Iraqis, many of them former insurgents, are on the American payroll. Many former insurgents, like Mr. Faraji, have been taken into the Iraqi security services.

In some parts of Iraq, like Baghdad, the Shiite-led government of Nuri al-Maliki has issued orders to arrest hundreds of Awakening Council members its considers dangerous and expressed intentions of decommissioning the groups, nervous that so many Sunni gunmen are being allowed to roam freely. Mr. Maliki’s desires are straining sectarian tensions in these places.[...]

The striking turnaround in Anbar Province, accomplished by making deals with Sunni tribal leaders, has inevitably raised a question here: Could the Americans have avoided years of bloodshed by reaching out to the tribal leaders five and a half years ago?

“Yes, yes,” Dr. al-Rubaie said of the Americans, shaking his head. “But they didn’t know.”[...]

Hamid al-Hais, a tribal leader who wore a checkered kafiya and flowing robe for the occasion, said the trouble in Anbar could be traced to the fateful decisions of mid-2003, when Paul Bremer, the chief administrator of the occupation, ordered the dissolution of the Iraqi army — a bastion of Sunni power under Saddam Hussein — and the dismissal of senior members of Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party.

That, Mr. Hais said at a reception following the ceremony, had set in motion the Sunni insurgency, which is only now burning out.

“Paul Bremer disbanded the army, the government, the police,” Mr. Hais said. “We had nothing left. We no choice but to resist.”

Infuriating, no...? Countless deaths could've been avoided...

F*cking incompetent civilian leadership from this Maladministration, their premiere hallmark...!

Now, I'd like to take issue with a current article from McClatchy and Leila Fadel...

Iraqi prime minister suffers from overconfidence, U.S., Iraqi aides say

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has been on a roll, and American officials are getting worried.

Once perceived as a sectarian Shiite Muslim leader, the U.S.-backed Maliki has won over Sunni constituents in recent months with offensives to curb Shiite militias in southern cities such as Basra and Amara and in the Baghdad Shiite slum of Sadr City.[...]

The Iraqi government is eager to take over the Sons of Iraq program, a U.S. initiative that pays mostly Sunni former insurgents to protect their neighborhoods. The Shiite-led government's aim, however, isn't to absorb the mostly Sunni groups into the security forces, but to disarm and in some cases detain the men.

How on earth can she claim that Maliki's recent actions has won over Sunni support? If anything his actions has strained relations, as she contradicts herself by pointing out that Maliki is gunning for them...!

Things that make you go hmmm...!

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