Fewer Marines Needed in Iraq Western Province
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON — Conditions in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, where a brutal insurgency once ruled, have improved so dramatically that America is handing over responsibility for security in the Sunni stronghold to Iraq within days. Troops freed up in Iraq could shift to Afghanistan.
“There aren’t a whole heck of a lot of bad guys there left to fight,” the top Marine Corps general, James Conway, said yesterday.
A ceremony marking the Anbar turnover is expected to be held Monday, several American and Iraqi officials said. Each spoke on condition of anonymity because the Iraqi government has not yet announced it. Anbar would be the 10th of Iraq’s 18 provinces to be returned to Iraqi government control, a step toward phasing out the American combat role as Iraqi security forces grow more competent.
The developments in Anbar have additional resonance because the province once was synonymous with the worst violence and lawlessness unleashed in Iraq following the American-led invasion in 2003.
