Oh. THERE Are The Flowers...

Looks like Bush found the secret to a happy Iraq. It involves leaving.

As U.S. leaves Fallujah, Iraqis proclaim victory

Masked men carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers and waving Iraqi flags rode through the deserted streets of Fallujah yesterday, claiming victory in the withdrawal this past week of U.S. Marines after a month-long siege of the city.

A day after the U.S.-led coalition announced it was handing over most security matters to a popular general from the former regime, Fallujah residents stepped from shuttered homes to find demolished buildings, uprooted trees, rows of shelled villas and car windows riddled with bullet holes.

They took comfort in what they did not see: Americans.

"The Americans have been pushed out by true soldiers, heroic men," said Shaker Adnan, 35, who wore the burgundy beret and dark camouflage of the Fallujah Brigade, the new proxy security force assembled by the coalition. "If the Americans were men, they would have never retreated. This triumph came from God."

Meanwhile, violence continued yesterday, exactly a year after President Bush stood aboard an aircraft carrier and declared that major combat in Iraq had ended.