OK, did anyone else think the giant “key to the prison” was a little much?

In what the Associated Press called “a milestone in Iraq’s push for complete sovereignty” the U.S. military on Thursday handed over control of Camp Cropper, the last American-run prison in the country, to Iraqi authorities.

But while patting the Iraqi government on the head with one hand, U.S. military officials were holding a separate (smaller) set of keys in the others. About 200 “very dangerous” inmates will remain in U.S. custody until American forces withdraw from the country entirely at the end of next year.

American officials insist the decision to hold onto the former regime leaders and al Qaida operatives came “at Iraq’s request,” but it wouldn’t be particularly surprising to learn that U.S. military had strongly suggested that Iraq make said request. This is, after all, a government that has made it clear that it doesn’t like to give up its hold on its war prisoners.

It will be interesting, then, to learn the status of Shawqi Omar, an American citizen who has been held — without charge — at Cropper since his arrest in Baghdad in 2004. The U.S. military claims Omar was an aide to terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and it fought hard for the right to transfer him to the Iraqi court system so that he could be tried as such.

But in a careful-what-you-ask-for switcheroo, the Iraqi court appears to have decided the American’s case against Omar wasn’t all that solid. In a hasty trial, late last month, Omar was convicted of nothing more than entering Iraq without a proper visa.

Will Omar be one of the 200 “very dangerous” criminals the Americans continue to hold, even after the Iraqi courts have decided that he’s only guilty of a bit of border jumping? And what would that say of Iraq’s sovereignty?

Stay tuned.