Fewer Marines needed in Iraq's western province

"There aren't a whole heck of a lot of bad guys there left to fight," Gen. James T. Conway, the top Marine Corps general, said Wednesday.

A ceremony marking the Anbar turnover is expected to be held Monday, several U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Each spoke on condition of anonymity because the Iraqi government has not yet announced it. Anbar would be the 10th of Iraq's 18 provinces to be returned to Iraqi government control, a step toward phasing out the American combat role as Iraqi security forces grow more competent.

The developments in Anbar have additional resonance because the province once was synonymous with the worst violence and lawlessness unleashed in Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The turnaround in Anbar is all the more dramatic for what it might mean for Afghanistan, the fight that has in some ways supplanted Iraq as a front-line battleground. The diverging trends make it likely that a U.S. buildup in Afghanistan will follow a drawdown in Iraq.

Conway said he learned on a visit to Anbar this summer that violence remains low and the 25,000 Marines there are doing more rebuilding than fighting.

"Quite frankly, young Marines join our Corps to go fight for their country," Conway said. "They are doing a very good job of this nation-building business (in Iraq). But it's our view that if there is a stiffer fight going someplace else ... then that's where we need to be."

That place might be Afghanistan, he said.

Speaking at a Pentagon news conference, Conway said the top American commander in Anbar, Marine Maj. Gen. John Kelly, believes fewer U.S. forces are needed to keep the peace. He said Kelly has proposed cutbacks to his superiors, but Conway declined to give specifics, saying only that the current number of Marines there is excessive.

The remarks by Conway, who is responsible for Marines' recruiting, training and equipping but not their use in combat, are an additional sign of the likelihood that Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, will recommend soon that troop withdrawals resume this fall. Petraeus has been assessing the overall security situation in light of the withdrawal of five Army combat brigades earlier this year.