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WOLF BLITZER: President
Bush made the unexpected visit to an area that's been
one of the bloodiest battlegrounds in Iraq.
What kind of message is he trying to send?
Joining us now, our correspondent in Baghdad, Michael
Ware -- Michael, the president simply shows up in the
Al Anbar Province, makes the point that a couple of
years ago this would have been unthinkable. And I
guess by implication it means things are getting
better, at least where he is, at the Al Assad
military base.
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf.
It was absolutely no surprise that of all the things
that President Bush decided to highlight during his
very secretive lightning tour here to Iraq was Al
Anbar Province. It's been a regular war drum of
success that he's been beating repeatedly in
successive speeches.
I mean, forget the surge. The surge, militarily, has
achieved the things that it has and it's fallen short
where it has. And the political developments that
were supposed to follow through from it certainly
haven't happened. They've fallen in a disastrous
heap.
So the one bright shining light that the president
has to show success is Al Anbar Province.
So gee whiz, where did he go?
What, of course, the president didn't talk about is
the real nature of this success, that, essentially,
when he says tribes, he's meaning Sunni insurgents.
He's talking about, as the president said, those who
fought alongside Al Qaeda against us are now fighting
alongside us against Al Qaeda.
Now, perhaps it's not without poignancy that in Al
Assad Air Base today with President Bush was the
Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, someone who until
recently was deeply opposed to this tribal program,
fearing that this was America building Sunni militias
to rival the Shia militias of Maliki's own
government.
So -- and to sit down with some these tribal sheikhs,
with Prime Minister Al-Maliki, I don't think that was
without meaning. I think that essentially told
Maliki, get on board with this program or get off --
you're about to be steamrolled.
Now, we've just come back from Anbar Province. We've
been with these tribal forces. We were with the
Islamic Army, Brigades of 1920 Revolution, former al
Qaeda. They don't hide the fact that they're against
Maliki. They're against his government. They're still
against the occupation.
And it was patently clear that the U.S. was indeed
supporting them, giving them weapons by putting them
straight into police uniforms, teaching them American
tactics and putting them back out on the street.
So, really, they are doing exactly what the
government fears -- building anti-government forces
-- Wolf.
BLITZER: In a nutshell, what would happen if the U.S.
decided to start pulling its Marines and soldiers out
of the Al Anbar Province over the next few months?
How would that unfold?
WARE: Well, we'd see, within the province itself, a
consolidation of the tribal and Baathist nationalist
insurgent power. What would be interesting would be
to see whether the government would attempt to make
inroads to curb that consolidation, because once they
leave Al Anbar, once the U.S. forces leave Iraq, I
can assure you Al Anbar will be one of the key
battlegrounds in the civil strife that everyone is
convinced will follow and U.S. intelligence agencies
constantly warn against in terms of reducing the
troops. That will be the price.
So Al Anbar -- post-American presence, in Iraq
itself, post-American occupation -- will be something
possibly very akin to Lebanon in the 1980s. And Al
Anbar will be bloody soil once more -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Not a very pretty picture, indeed.
Michael Ware, thanks very much.