"The tribes began flipping, like a domino effect," Army Col. Sean MacFarland told UPI. "Almost every week we get another sheik knocking on our door."

"Aug. 21 was a turning point, but you can never recognize it at the time," he said.

By MacFarland's teams count, the Ramadi area has 21 tribes. Twelve are cooperating in the security effort, six are considered neutral, and three are actively hostile. That is almost the reverse of the tribal posture in June, when three were cooperative and 12 were hostile.

As each neighborhood has established a security force, reconstruction money from the brigade has flowed in -- roughly $3 million in projects have been undertaken. The active fight has moved out of the main areas of the city where there are local police -- the government center, the primary street through town -- to the north and east.

Ramadi remains dangerous for Americans -- MacFarland's brigade lost 85 troops in the area -- but the improvement in security is measurable. From July 2006 to January 2007, indirect fire attacks were down two-thirds; the number of improvised explosive devices is down 57 percent, the daily average number of attacks is down 38 percent and the maximum number of enemy fighters able to mount a complex attack is down 40 percent.

Some of that improvement is attributable to the season; the Sunni insurgency is historically less active in the winter. But compared to January 2006, indirect fire attacks have dropped by one-third and attacks with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are down about 25 percent, an 18-month low.

The roadside bombs, or IEDs, are also getting smaller and less complex. MacFarland's brigade went one seven-week stretch with no soldiers killed by IEDs. The brigade and the Iraqi police are finding over 80 percent of all IEDs before they detonate. It is "a very significant indicator that this potent weapon system has become less effective in Ramadi," MacFarland said.

For a town that has earned a reputation as the single most dangerous post for U.S. troops in Iraq, that is a real achievement.

Still, the numbers tell just one part of the story. More importantly to MacFarland, attacks are occurring farther from the town center, away from the government center and from the main road -- evidence that the people are not tolerating insurgent presence the way they once seemed to embrace it, and are tipping off police to suspicious activities.

In a country where the nascent security forces regularly muster just over half of their members in daily formation, Ramadi's police -- linked so closely to the tribes and to their neighborhoods -- have a present for duty rate in the high 90 percent range.

The predictor of a successful neighborhood police force is their being collocated with U.S. and Iraqi army forces. They bring additional physical protection and firepower, giving the police a safe place to fall back to when they are challenged.

MacFarland, like other commanders in Iraq, bristles at the focus on U.S. casualty numbers. His brigade has killed and captured more than 3,000.

"The problem with (counting) casualties is that they are not a true metric of progress in a counter insurgency. The real prize is the population, and that is where we are making the most dramatic gains through tribal engagement. Without that, the enemy could regenerate and replace his losses indefinitely," MacFarland said.

U.S. forces in the overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar province have long held that not only are they the Sunnis' best friend in Iraq, but with a Shiite controlled government in Baghdad, they may be the Sunnis only friend.

Sheik Ahmed Abureeshah echoed that sentiment. "Truly I tell you if it wasn't the pressure of coalition forces and the (U.S.) ambassador on the government I think this province would be ... alone," he told UPI.