Hat tip to Abu Muqawama

It was to be the big shiny jewel of the Iraq war.

Anbar province, that grimy hole that was home to the Sunni insurgency was to officially leave the hands of the U.S. Marines and fall to the Iraqis.

It was scheduled, then rescheduled, and now… canned until later in the year.

  BAGHDAD — In a sign of the bitter political struggle playing out in western Iraq, the Anbar Provincial Council appealed Saturday for the American military to delay its handover of provincial security responsibilities to Iraqi forces until at least the end of the year, according to the council chairman.

Any long-term delay in the transfer would be a blow to American efforts to portray the province, once a Sunni extremist stronghold, as having nearly completed a security turnaround. And the request is likely to intensify fears among Anbaris that quarrels between the two powers in the province — the entrenched Iraqi Islamic Party and the up-and-coming political movement of pro-American Awakening Councils — could escalate into armed conflict.

Golly. What a shock.

PS - TWO Ball Gunner updates in one day. It’s like Christmas!