Security and stability in Iraq are the responsibility of the Iraqi Government. The Security Council affirmed in its resolution 1546 (2004) that Iraqi security forces would play a progressively greater role in enabling the Iraqi Government to assume that responsibility, diminishing and thereby ending the role of the multinational force, when the responsibility for security of the Iraqi security forces increases and expands. From the experience of the past two and a half years, it was established that the Iraqi security forces, which operated under the command of the Iraqi Government, had acquired new experiences and responsibilities and had grown in size, experience and capacity, demonstrated by their increased ability to assume full responsibility in the fields of security and defence.