The changing conversation in Anbar

Christian Science Monitor:

When Marine Lt. Col. Bill Mullen showed up at the city council meeting here Tuesday, everyone wanted a piece of him. There was the sheikh who wants to open a school, the judge who wants the colonel to be at the jail when several inmates are freed, and the Iraqi who just wants a burned-out trash bin removed from his neighborhood.

As insurgent violence continues to decrease in Iraq's Sunni-dominated Anbar Province – an improvement that President Bush heralded in his visit to Al Asad Air Base Monday as one sign of progress in the war – the conversation is shifting in Anbar. Where sheikhs and tribal leaders once only asked the US to protect them from Sunni extremists, now they want to know how to get their streets cleaned and where to buy generators.

"Security dominated everything, and we weren't able to get anything done," says Colonel Mullen, battalion commander here.

It's been six months since the so-called Anbar Awakening, when Sunni sheikhs joined US Marines in the fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq. Sunni extremists may still have a presence here, but US military officials say that with the help of the expanding Iraqi security forces, they've driven most of what remains of Al Qaeda from the urban areas.

Violence has stayed down, dropping from 2,000 attacks in March to about 450 last month – as the number of Iraqi security forces has increased, from around 24,000 this spring to nearly 40,000 today.

The changes here have allowed provincial and local governments to get established over the past few months, US officials here say. And now, true to the tribal culture that permeates Iraqi society, Sunni sheikhs here want to create a relationship of true patronage with what they consider to be the biggest and most powerful tribe here: the Marines of Anbar Province.

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Now, say Marine officials, they'll only spend money on a project that tribal sheikhs want only if those sheikhs get buy-in from the local and provincial governments that will ultimately own and maintain it.

"We don't want this to be about us spending American money for the sheikhs," says Brig. Gen. John Allen, who oversees political and economic reconstruction for Multi-National Forces-West. "We want this to be about American money that makes a difference in bringing government along and making the sheikhs part of the government."

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Referring to the roughly 25,000 marines in Anbar, Allen says, "This time next year, we could be half our size."

He added that the Marines' future in Anbar will be one of what he calls "operational overwatch," in which marines will retract their operations as Iraqi police forces stand up to provide their own security.

"We'll be out there if they need us, but we want [the police] to be the first line of defense, and if [the threat] is too big for them, then the Iraq Army can handle it, and if it's too big for them, then we'll come back in," Allen says.

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There is some evidence now that what's good for Anbar is good for Iraq. In some areas southwest of Baghdad in Yusufiyah, groups of what American military units call "concerned citizens" are getting together to ally with Americans.

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The key will be letting the military decide when it is time to pull back and not do it on some politicians schedule. When it is time the Marines will know and if they decide then the Sheiks will have more confidence in the decision. They have built a level of trust with the Marine tribe and they are wise enough not to trust the political tribes of Washington.