FORT BRAGG -- When the 82nd Airborne Division turned over the reins to the Marines in March, Fallujah was relatively quiet.

The 82nd had re-established schools, started a civil patrol, trained border police and brought some stability. Now, weeks after the paratroopers ended their seven-month stint in western Iraq, the Marines who replaced them are mired in urban warfare.

"Any time you got someone new on the block, you are going to test them, and I think that's exactly what has happened," Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd, said Wednesday at a news conference. "We were tested as soon as we got into the area last August and September. We showed them that we can go ahead and fight back. ... That's what they are doing to the Marine Corps."

For the first time in nearly two years, the entire 82nd is back at its Fort Bragg post. With tours in Afghanistan and Iraq behind it, the division will regroup, train and take "a well-deserved break," Swannack said.

The division lost 36 soldiers in Iraq, and 400 were wounded. The 82nd, which had nearly 12,000 people deployed, was relieved by the 1st Marine Division from Camp Pendleton in California on March 24 as part of a huge troop rotation.

The 82nd had been responsible for one-third of Iraq, stretching west from Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The division helped establish the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and Iraqi Border Police. It also destroyed or secured nearly 97 million pounds of ammunition and weapons.

There are now 10 battalions of more than 2,000 men in the Iraq Border Police and 51 functioning police stations with more than 5,000 Iraqi police, said a report distributed to reporters Wednesday. More than 2,500 Iraqi Facility Protection Service personnel are guarding key sites, and there are six battalions of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. About 6,000 trained citizens are working in their home villages and conducting independent patrols and operations.

The division paid for 2,436 infrastructure projects tallying more than $40 million. And it awarded $1 million to the tipster who led troops to insurgent leader Khamis Sirhan.

Swannack said he thinks less than 1 percent of the Iraqis oppose the coalition forces.

"Do the Iraqis like us? I don't believe so," Swannack said. "Are they tolerant of us? I strongly believe so."

Before leaving Iraq, Swannack said, the 82nd turned its intelligence over to the Marines in a two-week process. He said the Marines were told which roads and neighborhoods were safe, which of the more than 80 tribes in the region were friendly and the best relationships that had already been established with the locals.

Despite the recent rise in violence, "a democratic Iraq is the best thing that can happen for our children's children," Swannack said.