Corps to hand over control of Anbar

[unhappycamper]

Strategic shift
Handover to take place next week.


Corps to hand over control of Anbar
By Bryan Mitchell - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Aug 26, 2008 15:17:38 EDT

After a summer of delays, the highly touted handover of security in the once-volatile Anbar province of Iraq is scheduled for next week, the top Marine in Iraq said Tuesday.

Iraqi officials signed a memorandum of understanding Tuesday that paved the way for the handover of security next week, Maj. Gen. John F. Kelly said from Iraq in a telephone interview with Marine Corps Times.

The announcement comes on the heels of Commandant Gen. James Conway’s trip to the region in which the top Marine officer touched down first in Afghanistan, where several thousand Marines are fighting the Taliban and training Afghan security forces, then visited Iraq — a sign of the evolving level of importance between the two theaters.

Conway is slated to hold a press conference Wednesday morning to discuss the details of his trip through the Middle East.

The security handover was originally scheduled for late June, but was postponed twice due to weather and then indefinitely due to a governing conflict between the local and national governments that was recently resolved, said Kelly, the commander of Multi-National Force — West.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/08/marine_anbar_082608w/%2e