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Analysis: Treading Lightly in Iraq

Council on Foreign Relations

September 4, 2008
Author: Greg Bruno

This week's U.S. handover of security operations to Iraqi forces in Anbar Province, once the base of Iraq's Sunni insurgency, brought an understandable gush of pride from U.S. military officers in Baghdad and policymakers in Washington. In a White House "fact sheet," the Bush administration declared "the blows we have struck against al-Qaeda in Anbar have implications far beyond Anbar’s borders." Iraq's national security adviser was more specific; he predicted the handover would lead to an economic boom (VOI). Anbar's fate even figured in the U.S. presidential campaign (NYT), with presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), calling the handover "a solemn and proud moment" for Iraqis and Americans.

Politics aside, few would dispute that improved security in the western Iraqi province is good news. After more than five years in which American forces did most of the heavy lifting, Iraqi forces are in control of eleven of Iraq's eighteen provinces; nearly 500,000 Iraqi soldiers and police have been trained by coalition counterparts; and two-thirds of formed Iraqi army battalions are capable of planning and executing missions without American support (PDF), according to a June 2008 Pentagon report.

But are the cheers premature? Patrick Cockburn, a veteran Iraq correspondent for the Independent newspaper, argues nothing is as it seems in Iraq, especially declarations of progress on security. A senior U.S. general responsible for U.S. troops in eastern Iraq insists that any drawdown of forces in Anbar will be incremental. "This is still a dangerous place," he told Associated Press a day before the handover.

At the heart of this unease is the uncertain future of the so-called Awakening Councils or Sons of Iraq groups, Sunni tribal volunteers credited with restoring order to Anbar

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.