"It's no secret that sectarian violence ... has changed the dynamics of what Iraqis must face here on the ground," he said. "Everything's not as I would have expected it to be or wanted it to be on my way out, but that's kind of the way things are."

Casey said he was still too close to the situation to evaluate his tenure.

"The main point people will debate is whether I relied too much on Iraqi forces to carry the security load and too little on coalition forces," he said. "But I'm certainly not ready to say that's a mistake. I'll let history judge that."

An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the Iraqi government hoped Petraeus' command would help a new joint US-Iraqi security plan.

"It reflects the change in US policy in Iraq. We have so much hope that the security plan will succeed and that he (Petraeus) will be part of that success," said the adviser, Bassam al-Husseini.

Neither al-Maliki nor Iraqi President Jalal Talabani attended Saturday's ceremony, though Talabani and his two deputies met Petraeus on Friday and discussed the security plan, a government statement said.

The effort to pacify Iraq, especially in Baghdad, also includes Sunni-Shiite reconciliation efforts.

On Saturday, dozens of Shiites and a handful of Sunnis gathered for the reopening of a Sunni mosque in Baghdad's Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City. But the Sunni Endowment, which is in charge of all Sunni mosques across Iraq, gave a lukewarm response to the initiative.

"We cannot guarantee the return of displaced families to Sadr City ... so the mosque that has no worshippers cannot relay its message," the endowment said in a statement, adding it welcomed "any step to return things to the way they were before."

Sadr City is the headquarters of the Mahdi Army, the militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The fighters are blamed for much of the sectarian killing that has targeted minority Sunnis in a year of revenge killings after al-Qaida in Iraq bombers destroyed an important Shiite shrine north of Baghdad.

Militia members are keeping a low profile and trying to improve their image as US and Iraqi forces launch a security sweep that the Shiite-led government has promised would not spare Shiite militiamen or Sunni insurgents.

The command swap is part of Bush's overhaul of Iraq policy, including a new focus on Iran's role. The administration has accused Tehran of funneling money and weapons to Shiite militiamen and Sunni insurgents in Iraq, and US forces have launched raids on Iranian targets in Iraq.

But little evidence, such as documents or other items collected in the raids, has been made public. National security officials in Washington and Baghdad have worked for weeks on a presentation intended to provide evidence of the administration's claims.

US officials in Baghdad scheduled a media briefing for Sunday that was expected to detail allegations of Iranian involvement.

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