Uncertainty After Anbar Handover

Sunni leader Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, left, with Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, during the Anbar handover ceremony in Ramadi. (By Wathiq Khuzaie -- Associated Press)

Col. Saadi al-Dulaimy, commander of an Iraqi army battalion west of Baghdad, said many Awakening fighters are former members of al-Qaeda in Iraq with blood on their hands and complicity in killings of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. "Today they claim they are part of the Awakening just to escape punishment," he said.

Sheik Adnan al-Zobaie, leader of an Awakening group called "Hunters of the Foreign Fighters," based in Smelat, west of Baghdad, is hiding with 59 of his fighters near a U.S. military base in Anbar to evade arrest warrants issued against them.

"They accuse me of operating with one of the insurgent groups, which I don't deny, but now I am fighting al-Qaeda and what I did before should be forgiven," Zobaie said. "Why do they want to put me in prison with the al-Qaeda members I already captured? I can't understand that."

In a telephone interview from a hideout in a remote area of Anbar province, Abu Mustafa al-Lehebi, a leader of a brigade of the Abu Ghraib Awakening, said: "We have only the U.S. Army to protect us, but we are afraid that they will let us down when they hand over the security profile to Iraqis in Anbar.

"The government stabbed us in the back and lied to us," he said. "Now we are caught between the hammer of al-Qaeda and the anvil of the government."

During the handover ceremony in Anbar, U.S. and Iraqi officials praised the role of the Awakening in creating conditions that allowed the province to become the 11th of 18 to be transferred to Iraqi control.

U.S. and Iraqi officials embraced after a parade in downtown Ramadi, the provincial capital, which was a haven for al-Qaeda in Iraq. "Today, Anbar is no longer lost to al-Qaeda -- it is al-Qaeda that lost Anbar," President Bush said in a statement.

The ceremony was scheduled for June but was postponed at the last minute over what the military called concerns over a dust storm. The real reason for the delay of more than two months was widely perceived to be a suicide bombing that killed at least 28 people, including three U.S. Marines.

The U.S. forces in Anbar, which have declined to 26,000 from 37,500 earlier this year, will now "leave the cities and remain in an overwatch position prepared to support" Iraqi security forces, the military said in a statement. The decrease of U.S. troops has come as the Iraqi police strength jumped from 11,000 early last year to 24,000 today, and the Iraqi army nearly tripled, from 8,300 to 24,000 over the same period, according to the U.S. military.

Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. forces in Anbar, said in an interview last month that although al-Qaeda in Iraq had not been fully defeated, the United States was close to completing its job in the province. "We're in the last 10 yards of this thing," he said. "And the last 10 yards means economic development and jobs."

Kelly said his primary work now is helping Anbar's people get desperately needed services such as water, electricity and sewage disposal. He said officials in Baghdad need to do much more to improve Anbar's quality of life and provide jobs.

"I just wish it could be a lot faster," he said. "We could declare victory and walk away from this thing tomorrow if the economy picked up significantly."

Washington Post staff in Anbar and Diyala provinces contributed to this report.