COMBAT OUTPOST COPPER, IRAQ - It's quiet around here in farm country, south of Baghdad where al-Qaida in Iraq once held sway. Just months ago U.S. foot patrols through the wheat fields nearby would regularly draw fire -- if the soldiers managed first to elude roadside bombs.

"The difference is night and day," says Capt. George Morris, 26. He and his soldiers in Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division walked the area this week to visit a handful of farm families five miles east of the town of Latifiyah, not far from the Tigris River.

And it's not just here. Throughout the country, al-Qaida in Iraq, an insurgent organization thought to be affiliated with the global terrorist network but comprised mainly of Iraqis, has lost so much clout it is close to becoming irrelevant to the outcome of the war. The group has not been eliminated, however, leaving open the possibility of resurgence if the Iraqi government fails to follow up the military gains with civilian services like the irrigation, which is badly needed here.

People turn in fighters

When President Bush announced in January 2007 that he was sending more than 21,000 extra U.S. combat troops to Iraq -- mostly to the Baghdad area -- as part of a new approach to fighting the insurgency, commanders said their No. 1 focus was degrading al-Qaida in Iraq's ability to foment sectarian violence.

In the Latifiyah area, it's not hard to see that that goal appears to have been achieved -- an accomplishment that adds to the expectation that Bush will be able to further reduce U.S. troop levels this fall.

Iraqi Army Capt. Jassim Hussein al-Shamari, whose men were part of Morris' foot patrol, has one explanation for al-Qaida in Iraq's fall.

"The people themselves will turn over the terrorists" if they show themselves, says al-Shamari. He's speaking through an interpreter to Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, a deputy commander of U.S. forces in the swath of once-violent territory stretching south of Baghdad from the Iranian border to Anbar province.

Buchanan sees it much the same way.

"The people are fed up with what they experienced under [al-Qaida in Iraq's] presence," Buchanan said, adding that the key to keeping the terrorist group down is having the government in Baghdad step in and provide more essential services.

And there is a troubling disconnect between the central government and local leaders.

"The link to the government of Iraq is almost nonexistent here," Morris said.

Will group re-emerge?

So it remains an open question: Once U.S. combat forces depart, whenever that may be, will al-Qaida in Iraq find an avenue for resurgence? It is generally accepted among U.S. officers and intelligence specialists that despite its decline, al-Qaida in Iraq will remain at some level long after the U.S. is gone. The group had no meaningful foothold in the country before U.S. forces invaded in March 2003.

There is no available official estimate of the number of al-Qaida in Iraq fighters. A U.S. intelligence estimate early this year put it at a maximum of 6,000, although it probably has fallen far lower recently. Perhaps more importantly, U.S. officers said in a series of Associated Press interviews over the past 10 days that so many al-Qaida in Iraq leaders have been captured or killed that its remnants are ineffective.

Col. Al Batschelet, chief of staff for the U.S. command overseeing military operations in the Baghdad area, said that once the leadership began disappearing, lower-level technicians were pressed into duty.

That had the effect of accelerating the group's decline.

"There are still disrupted cells of al-Qaida in our area," said Col. Bill Hickman, commander of 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division in northwest Baghdad. "So they're active, but they're not as effective as they used to be."

As for eliminating al-Qaida in Iraq entirely, "That's probably not achievable," Batschelet said.

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