Can US sustain Anbar success?

While Al Qaeda in Iraq has been largely driven out of Ramadi, the US is hoping to build on the gains by fixing basic services and mediating tribal hostilities.

By Sam Dagher | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the May 4, 2007 edition

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RAMADI, Iraq - Col. John Charlton, commander of US forces in Ramadi, keeps a big white board in his office that lists a dizzying array of tasks. It's a catalog of jobs meant to rebuild the war-shattered capital of Anbar Province.

The list stretches through October, and, on a visit to his office last week, not one item had been ticked off.

While the colonel from Spokane, Wash., says the American fight against Al Qaeda in the city is over, the hard work of maintaining that victory is now facing the US troops.

"The number one accomplishment," Colonel Charlton says, is that Coalition forces, the Iraqi police, and Iraqi Army have defeated Al Qaeda in Ramadi. "We have absolutely defeated them."

Indeed, the city that was once an Al Qaeda stronghold appears to be firmly in the hands of US and Iraqi forces. Only a few months ago, those forces could not even venture out without being attacked.

To sustain their success, US troops here have embarked on restoring basic services, maintaining some stability, and bringing hope to the war-weary citizens of Ramadi. Doing that hinges on easing a power struggle – and a rush to control resources and institutions – under way between a reemerging provincial authority and the same group of tribal leaders that helped the US in the fight against Al Qaeda.

It also depends on spreading the formula that has helped in Ramadi to other parts of the Sunni Arab province, especially the area around Fallujah, where the insurgency remains strong among the tribes there.

An Iraqi fight to control Ramadi

The newly assertive Anbar sheikhs – emboldened by their fight to drive Al Qaeda elements from the province – are eager to carve out a political role for themselves.

"The governor is a dictator. He's the source of all evil in the province," says the governor's deputy, Sheikh Moayad Ibrahim al-Humaishi, who is also a leading member of the Anbar Salvation Council, the collection of tribal leaders that rallied against Al Qaeda.

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