Who wins in the Fallujah handover?

Iraqi insurgents are celebrating their "victory" in Fallujah - broadcasting it from mosques while residents rejoice in the streets - as US marines over the weekend pulled back forces encircling the city.

Marine commanders, too, are lauding the deal, which empowers soldiers of Saddam Hussein's former army to take over security, forestalling an all-out assault on Fallujah that promised to be bloody.

But even as the Marines gamble on the promises of an untested former Republican Guard general and his fledgling unit of some 1,200 soldiers, they are weighing the costs of their solution. Among them: Concerns that widespread perception of a US defeat may fuel more unrest in Iraq; and that the Marines have ceded control of an estimated 200 foreign fighters, holed up in the city they call the "nexus of evil" of Iraq's insurgency.

"Is it going to be seen as an encouraging sign for the resistance?" asks a senior US Marine officer, who requested anonymity. The guerrillas, he adds, could say: "We fought the US military machine to a draw, come join us, get on the winning team."

Despite plentiful US intelligence about the presence of foreign fighters in Fallujah during the conflict, Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh, the Iraqi first tipped to lead the new force, told the Reuters news agency Sunday that "there are no foreign fighters in Fallujah, and the local tribal leaders have told me the same."

US officers think otherwise. "Of the things we're giving up [with this deal], the ability to control the fate of the foreign fighters is a big minus," says the senior US officer. Fallujah is "the last urban sanctuary you could hide in without people disturbing you - loading a car with explosives without any one bothering you."

Though these fighters may have slipped away, there may still be a silver lining, says the officer. "If we got the foreign fighters out of the sanctuary, and on the move, they're more vulnerable," he says. "Now you've got them on the run."

Military leaders here say they have halted an offensive that would almost certainly have further galvanized anti-US sentiment, already hardening in the past month. If it works, there is an Iraqi face on efforts to quell the Fallujah insurgency - a result that the US says has always been its endgame, as it eyes the June 30 handover of sovereignty to Iraqis. Over the weekend, marines cut their area of control from one-fourth of the city to just 10 percent.

Lt. Gen. James Conway, the top US Marine officer in Iraq, praised the "formation of a military partnership" that could bring a "lasting, durable climate of peace."

The former Iraqi soldiers "share in our sense of urgency in stabilizing Fallujah and are willing to share in the danger in making that happen," General Conway said.

Media characterizations that the deal is the "first stage of a Marine 'withdrawal' or 'retreat' " are wrong, Conway added. "Let me tell you that both of those are dirty words in the vocabulary of a marine - and nothing could be further from the truth."

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