In Iraq, inching toward a new Anbar with help of Marines

The U.S. military gave the vehicles to the police officers stationed in a former school here, but the Iraqi government hasn't provided parts or a maintenance system to keep them running. The officers work on their own vehicles, picking parts from the junkers.

A shaky connection with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad is just one of the problems confronting American efforts to disengage from the predominantly Sunni Arab province more than a year after the U.S. military joined with local security forces, former insurgents and tribal warriors to take on Al Qaeda in Iraq here.

A formal transfer from U.S. to Iraqi control over security in Anbar had been scheduled for early July, then put on indefinite hold after a suicide bomber targeted a town council meeting in the town of Karmah, killing three Marines and at least 22 Iraqis. The U.S. military initially blamed poor weather for the postponement, but several local leaders said the bombing showed that Iraqi security forces were still not prepared.

The transfer will be a milestone in the war in Iraq, as a declaration of victory in the birthplace of the insurgency and a province that only two years ago was considered lost to Al Qaeda in Iraq. The delay has put a damper on hopes for a triumphant U.S. withdrawal soon.

Yet even as the ceremony hangs in limbo, Marines and Iraqi police officers in Ramadi are transferring the reins of security, little by little.

On a recent day, Capt. Jonathan Hamilton, commander of the weapons company of the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, dropped by the Forsan station, with its impromptu salvage yard.

For more than a year since the Forsan police station was established as an outpost in the abandoned school, a detachment of Marines has lived and worked there alongside the Iraqi police.

Hamilton said it was time for the station to stand on its own. The young police force had proved its capability to maintain the rule of law in this provincial capital of 400,000.

Gradually, the Marines are trying to demilitarize the city, Hamilton said. One by one, they're pulling out the units that billeted in 11 police stations, rolling up their razor wire and withdrawing to bases outside the city.