US troops hand over control in Iraq
Updated on 30 June 2009
Today has been declared a national holiday in Iraq, as American combat troops officially withdraw from all Iraqi cities. Andrew Thomas reports.
More than six years after the fall of Baghdad, the security of all Iraq's urban areas will be in the hands of its own army and police. It is a move hailed as a great victory by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The withdrawal coincides with the auctioning of lucrative contracts to foreign oil companies for the first time since the invasion in 2003.
US combat troops must withdraw from Iraqi cities by 30 June according to a security agreement that also requires all American forces to leave the country by the end of 2011.
Some Americans will remain in the cities as trainers and advisers, but the bulk of the more than 130,000 US troops in Iraq have assembled in large bases outside urban centres.
Most Iraqis are hailing the US pullback from towns and cities as a milestone on their country's road to sovereignty six years after the US military invaded to topple Saddam Hussein.
But a string of bombings in Baghdad and northern Iraq in recent days, including two of the bloodiest attacks for more than a year, have shaken confidence in their security forces.
Two big bombings in Baghdad and near the northern city of Kirkuk in recent days killed more than 150 people between them.
Iraqi officials have warned that they expect the number of attacks to increase as the US troops pull back, and also in the run-up to a parliamentary election next January.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Saturday the US withdrawal sent a message to the world that Iraq could handle its own security.
The government trusted its forces to defeat al-Qaida militants and criminal gangs, he added.
The top US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, has said time is right for American forces to pull out of Iraqi cities and expressed confidence in the ability of Iraq's security forces to take more control.
"I think there are some extremist elements who are trying to bring attention to their movement that has been fractured," Odierno said on CNN of the bombings.
"They are trying to use this time frame and this date to first gain attention for themselves and also to divert attention from the success of the Iraqi security forces."
