Ramadi, Iraq ? As the Marine Corps shrinks its footprint in Iraq’s western desert, Iraqi community leaders here are publicly voicing worries about what will happen once the Americans are gone.

They fear a wave of corruption and the return of the insurgency that once held sway over the area.

Marines have begun divorcing themselves from the task of advising local leaders, the clearest signal that their role in Anbar province is quickly nearing its end.

An Associated Press reporter embedded with the troops witnessed two cases in a single day of Iraqis — a headmistress and a party of businessmen — asking for help and being told the Marines could do very little for them.

“We’ve always said it’s not going to be easy,” said Marine Lt. Col. Thad R. Trapp. “They are sure looking over with some anxiety at the separation. There is some anxiety about what the road ahead will look like.”

Raheem Kalaaf Mohammed, vice president of the North Ramadi City Council, was more blunt, saying: “We feel there will be a disaster here.”

President Barack Obama says he will withdraw combat troops from Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010. American commanders are already working on plans to pull out of Iraqi cities by June 30 under a U.S.-Iraqi security pact that also calls for all American forces to be gone by 2012.

Anbar is the largest Iraqi province, stretching from the western gates of Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It was a main battleground in the insurgency that broke out soon after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein.

The 22,000 Marines in Anbar have already pulled back to the outskirts of Ramadi, Fallujah and other cities in Anbar. They are wrapping up their involvement in U.S.-funded reconstruction, and are tearing down bases or handing them over to Iraqi control.

Maj. Gen. Richard T. Tryon, commander of Marine operations in Anbar, has ordered the closure or handover of 16 small bases in Ramadi, Fallujah and Karmah since late January. More closures are expected, including in Hit, a town once used as a way station for extremists infiltrating from Syria.

Tryon told The AP in an e-mail that improvements in Iraq’s security forces made a “responsible drawdown” possible.

However, Iraqi security chiefs have spoken in recent interviews of their worries that some of the thousands of Iraqis being freed from U.S. custody under the security pact will revitalize the insurgency.