BUYING SUCCESS

President Bush and other administration officials have been citing Anbar Province, long one of the most violent regions of Iraq, as an encouraging success story as the war drags well into its fifth year. But like everything else in Iraq, the picture isn’t that clear.

On his recent visit to Iraq, Mr. Bush avoided Baghdad and headed for Anbar, where Sunni tribal chiefs had allied themselves with the U.S. forces against al-Qaida terrorists. The president pointed to the alliance as one of the most hopeful developments since the current “surge” began. Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker also focused last week on the Anbar linkup as a positive sign.

The alliance began a year ago. Thirty of the tribes there had formed the Anbar Salvation Council and called their move the “Anbar Awakening.” They said they had come to see al-Qaida in Iraq as their worst enemy and the United States as their ally. They began telling Americans where the extremists were hiding weapons, burying bombs and operating safe houses. Many of the tribesmen began joining Iraqi police departments.

The leader of the Sunni allies, Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, shook hands with Mr. Bush during the presidential visit.

But trouble had developed by last June. A Washington Post dispatch quoted the head of the largest tribal organization in Anbar as assailing the Salvation Council and predicting its collapse because of dissension over its cooperation with U.S. forces and the behavior of Sheik al-Rishawi, calling him a “traitor” who “sells his beliefs, his religion and his people for money.”

Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst, questioned whether the tribal leaders would “stay bought.” Gen. Petraeus rejected the notion that the United States had bought the loyalty of the tribes, saying that they were putting their lives on the line.

As it turned out, Sheik al-Rishawi was assassinated, just hours before President Bush addressed the American people on television about the Iraq war.

Further light on the Anbar alliance was cast by two journalists supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting who had been embedded with Iraqi forces in the province. One of them, Rick Rowley, an independent filmmaker, said he and David Enders “saw American military hand wads of cash to tribal militias.” He described the new Sunni allies as devoted terrorists bound to return to extremism when U.S. pay stopped.

Violence in Anbar naturally has gone down temporarily. But people there remain anti-American. An August poll in Iraq by ABC, BBC and NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, found that 76 percent of Anbar residents wanted the United States to withdraw now and all of those questioned opposed the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq. Gary Langer, director of polling for ABC News, suggested in The New York Times that the tribal alliance rested on the money supplied by the United States.

The “success” in Anbar could join other achievements that have been hailed as turning points in the war, such as “Mission Accomplished,” various Iraqi elections and the killing and capture of various al-Qaida figures. The war still goes on with no clear agreement on how to end it.