This is a major step forward and a step closer to our full victory in Iraq. Anbar will be the 10th province given back to the Iraqi people stripped of its insurgency.


US plan Anbar security handover

Nine of 18 provinces have been handed over to Iraqi forces
Security responsibility for Anbar province - once Iraq's most dangerous - could transfer to Iraqi forces by March, a senior US general said.
Maj Gen Walter Gaskin of the US Marines said a fall in violence had paved the way for handing Anbar to Iraqi control.

In Washington, the visiting Iraqi defence minister said Iraqi forces may be ready to take responsibility for all remaining areas of the country by 2009.

Nine of 18 Iraqi provinces remain to be handed over to Iraqi control.

Maj Gen Gaskin, commander of around 35,000 marines in Anbar, said the planned security handover in the region did not mean US troops would leave the province altogether.

In the past we were behind the multi-national forces, then we fought side by side and shoulder to shoulder and now we are in front of the American forces

Abdul Qader Obeidi
Iraqi defence minister

In Washington, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates did not mention plans to hand over the province but told reporters: "Anbar, once considered a stronghold of al-Qaeda, has been reclaimed for the Iraqi people."

His visiting Iraqi counterpart, Abdul Qader Obeidi, said Iraqi forces could take over security for the entire country by next year.

"In the past we were behind the multi-national forces, then we fought side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder and now we are in front of the American forces," he said.



The western province of Anbar was once the base of the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq but it has witnessed a turnaround in the last 18 months.

Security improvements have been credited to the flourishing of Sunni tribal neighbourhood militias, some including former insurgents, which have teamed up with US forces to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Analysts say President George W Bush's surge strategy of injecting an extra 30,000 US troops into Iraq last year has also helped reduce violence.

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The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.

Norman Thomas

Wow, I wasn't aware of the provinces that had been turned over to Iraqi control, wonder why the media isn't intrested in covering this?

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An informed voter scares the Goverment lackeys.

An American first and always a Conservative.

US Army 1977-2007

Go Sooners

More bad news for the democrats and their investment in defeat--and more good news for our troops and another step towards their victorious journey home.

By watching the liberal media--by listening to democrat politicians--its hard to tell if they even know were still in Iraq. Truely representing the glass half full ideology of liberalism.