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US forces start packing up and pulling out
The United States military is packing up to leave Iraq in what has been deemed the largest movement of manpower and equipment in modern military history - shipping out more than 1.5 million pieces of equipment from tanks to antennas alongside a force the size of a small city.The massive operation already under way a year ahead of the August 31, 2010 deadline to remove all US combat troops from Iraq shows the US military has picked up the pace of a planned exit from Iraq that could cost billions. The goal is to withdraw tens of thousands of troops and about 60 per cent of equipment out of Iraq by the end of next March, Brigadier General Heidi Brown, a deputy commander charged with overseeing the withdrawal, told AP. Convoys carrying everything from armoured trucks to radios have been rolling near daily through southern Iraq to Kuwait and the western desert to Jordan since President Barack Obama announced the deadline to remove combat troops, leaving up to 50,000 troops under a US-Iraqi security agreement until the end of 2011. First out, Brown said, will be the early withdrawal of an Army combat brigade of about 5000. That will be followed by the Marine Corps, which has already shipped out about half of its 22,000 troops and more than 50 per cent of its equipment since May. "In about six months or less, they will be gone," she said. The US military also plans to shrink the contractor force from roughly 130,000 to between 50,000 and 75,000 by September 2010. Those remaining would pick up additional duties from departing troops. The nearly 300 American bases and outposts currently remaining will shrink to 50 or less and the Al Faw Palace in Baghdad, which serves as the US military headquarters, is expected to be turned over to the Iraqis, Brown said. The price tag for all of this has not been fully calculated by the Pentagon because it was not immediately clear how much equipment would be returned to the US, donated to the Iraqis or shipped to Afghanistan, according to officials. However, a report to Congress this year that the withdrawal would be a "massive and expensive effort". It also estimated an additional US$12 billion ($17.5 billion) to US$13 billion a year would be needed for two years following the withdrawal for maintenance, repairs and replacement of equipment returned from Iraq. Not since Vietnam has the US withdrawn so many troops and so much equipment with a looming deadline. The military anticipates keeping the majority of its 130,000 combat troops currently in Iraq until nearly two months after the January 16 national elections, then rapidly drawing down troops and equipment in the weeks that follow. Posted by: tipper 2009-09-02 |
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