Iraqis to mark US street exit with holiday

• 30 June troop pullout seen as return to sovereignty
• Celebratory mood angers some American officials

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• Martin Chulov in Baghdad
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 June 2009 20.08 BST
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From 30 June Iraq?s police and army will carry out street patrols without American troops, who will remain in US bases. Photograph: Ahmad Al-rubaye/AFP/Getty Images

Iraq has declared tomorrow a national holiday and is planning festivals to mark the end of the US presence on the streets of its towns and cities, more than six years after Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein was ousted.

The much-anticipated milestone has been hailed as a return to sovereignty by Iraqi officials, who have maintained sometimes difficult relations with the US military throughout the years of occupation.

But the celebratory mood has angered some senior US officials and military commanders, who believe intensive training efforts with Iraqi forces have been forsaken, along with combat operations that have cost at least several thousand American lives since the fall of Baghdad.

The Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-MalikiNouri al-Maliki, fuelled US anger at the weekend by describing the withdrawal as the result of Iraq's successful bid to "repulse" the invaders. "We are on the threshold of a new phase that will bolster Iraq's sovereignty. It is a message to the world that we are now able to safeguard our security and administer our own affairs," Maliki said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde.

Under the new arrangements the US military will be reduced to a supporting role; it will only be able to join operations at Iraq's invitation and will no longer be able to conduct solo combat operations.

From tomorrow, 130,000 US troops will almost exclusively be confined to bases from where they will gradually leave Iraq ahead of a final departure in mid-2011.

Security will be left to Iraqi army and police units, which insist they are ready to step into the breach. Despite diminishing this year, the US military role has remained significant, especially in clearing main roads of numerous improvised bombs and tracking the launch point of rockets that have been fired at US bases and Baghdad's international zone.

Yesterday, Iraq cancelled leave for all its police and put them on high alert. Security was tightened across the capital, with troops and police closing roads and carefully searching cars.

"The alert has gone to all of our forces. There will be no days off. They are at their full strength across the whole country, at 100%,"said Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the interior ministry, which controls the police. "All of our units have seen an increase in their numbers, not only at the checkpoints."

America's military commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, said this month that US forces would also withdraw from the still hostile provinces of Diyala and Ninawa, which had been seen as areas in which they would remain. A commander in Mosul, the capital of Ninawa, said last week that US troops had recently been experiencing about five attacks a day.

Odierno said the number of US bases throughout Iraq had fallen from 460 to 320 and would continue to contract this year.

Banners and flower decorations yesterday adorned Baghdad, which had been rattled by at least 15 large explosions in the week leading up to the withdrawal. Maliki has suggested that security will continue to deteriorate in the run-up to national polls in January as militias and political groups try to assert their influence.

Some banners proclaimed the 30 June date as historically significant because it coincided with the Iraqi revolution of 1920, which eventually led to the British exit from Iraq.

One in al-Hurria Square, Baghdad, read: "30 June is the day that Iraqi cities will be decorated by brave Iraqi hands." Cars all around were glittering with decorations.

In Karrada district, Muhammad Meri, an Iraqi soldier, said. "The Americans were occupiers; they did not come here to help Iraq and that's why we are glad to get [shot] of them. We will now rely on our own abilities and we will not need them alongside us. We knew our enemy, but we know our people better."

His officer had a different view. "The American forces were very helpful for Iraqi forces," said Lieutenant Hussein Abdul Kader . "We benefited from their experience in war and their training. "We thank them for their help and Iraq should thank them also."

A local woman, Emtethal Wedeye, 40, welcomed the American departure, saying: "I dreamed a lot about the Americans arriving in Iraq and changing things. I wanted a new life and a better environment. I shook the Americans' hands and decorated them with flowers. But our dreams were empty and now I am happy they are leaving."

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