Home
CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Iraq – Here under the smoke-smudged desert skies, the future lies two and a half hours to the south, at the Kuwaiti border that marks an end of sorts for the last troops in southern Iraq.
One hundred flatbed trucks rumbled away three days ago, further emptying out a base that now holds about 500 American soldiers. Three lines of vehicles more are due to leave in the next week or so, bringing the American military’s presence in this oil-rich province virtually to an end.
Each convoy – a “tactical road march” – departs without much fanfare, said Lt. Col. Andy Poznick. Plans are laid, routes charted, and soldiers briefed, but there are no great speeches or ceremonies.
“As far as we’re concerned, it’s another operation,” Colonel Poznick said.
It is like this across Iraq, one month before the deadline for the last American forces to leave. American military bases are closing every week. Once, there were more than 500. As of Tuesday, there were seven.
The Obama administration is casting their departure as a promise kept, but in Baghdad and across the country, worries abound among policy makers, analysts and many Iraqis themselves. Will Iran try to destabilize security? Will bloody score-settling and sectarian clashes erupt anew? Will Iraq’s security forces be able to contend with pernicious threats from Al Qaeda’s local offshoot?
These were faraway questions. What mattered now for the soldiers from the First Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment was packing, closing down, and clearing the way for American diplomats and security guards who are staying on as part of the new consulate here. The Iraqi Army and Air Force will also have posts here.
In their fading days, the American troops are busy, even as they talk of returning to Fort Hood in Texas. Christmas. Seeing a wife. Hugging children.
Between packing duffel bags, they are nudging concrete blast walls into place and setting up concrete bunkers for a new, smaller security perimeter for the consulate, which is open but remains a work in progress. Workers are still building housing units and will be working on a permanent hospital for much of the winter, military officers said. Until lookout towers arrive from Jordan, some guards are posted in shipping containers, stacked on top of each other.
They are still patrolling Basra’s sun-blasted roads, where they were hit by a homemade bomb two weeks ago while searching for the firing point of a rocket that had streaked into the base.
“We will be the ones to pass the final convoys, follow them out and close the door behind us,” said Col. Douglas Crissman, who oversees American forces in the four southern provinces of Iraq.
Iraq still veers between bloodshed and calm on a daily basis, a fact highlighted by the bomb blasts in a Basra market that killed 25 people last week. But Lieutenant Colonel Poznick said his time here, at the end, has helped draw the curtain on an even bloodier deployment in northeastern Iraq at the height of the civil war. His battalion lost 26 people that time around.
“You see 26 soldiers die in a short amount of time – it’s difficult,” he said. “You don’t want to ever look at a parent in their eye and say, ‘Your child died in vain.’”
Coming back to a calmer Iraq, where violence has fallen sharply and security forces – however flawed – are patrolling the streets has changed his perspective.
“I know it sounds cliché, but it really has provided closure,” he said.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] [b]
One hundred flatbed trucks rumbled away three days ago, further emptying out a base that now holds about 500 American soldiers. Three lines of vehicles more are due to leave in the next week or so, bringing the American military’s presence in this oil-rich province virtually to an end.
Each convoy – a “tactical road march” – departs without much fanfare, said Lt. Col. Andy Poznick. Plans are laid, routes charted, and soldiers briefed, but there are no great speeches or ceremonies.
“As far as we’re concerned, it’s another operation,” Colonel Poznick said.
It is like this across Iraq, one month before the deadline for the last American forces to leave. American military bases are closing every week. Once, there were more than 500. As of Tuesday, there were seven.
The Obama administration is casting their departure as a promise kept, but in Baghdad and across the country, worries abound among policy makers, analysts and many Iraqis themselves. Will Iran try to destabilize security? Will bloody score-settling and sectarian clashes erupt anew? Will Iraq’s security forces be able to contend with pernicious threats from Al Qaeda’s local offshoot?
These were faraway questions. What mattered now for the soldiers from the First Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment was packing, closing down, and clearing the way for American diplomats and security guards who are staying on as part of the new consulate here. The Iraqi Army and Air Force will also have posts here.
In their fading days, the American troops are busy, even as they talk of returning to Fort Hood in Texas. Christmas. Seeing a wife. Hugging children.
Between packing duffel bags, they are nudging concrete blast walls into place and setting up concrete bunkers for a new, smaller security perimeter for the consulate, which is open but remains a work in progress. Workers are still building housing units and will be working on a permanent hospital for much of the winter, military officers said. Until lookout towers arrive from Jordan, some guards are posted in shipping containers, stacked on top of each other.
They are still patrolling Basra’s sun-blasted roads, where they were hit by a homemade bomb two weeks ago while searching for the firing point of a rocket that had streaked into the base.
“We will be the ones to pass the final convoys, follow them out and close the door behind us,” said Col. Douglas Crissman, who oversees American forces in the four southern provinces of Iraq.
Iraq still veers between bloodshed and calm on a daily basis, a fact highlighted by the bomb blasts in a Basra market that killed 25 people last week. But Lieutenant Colonel Poznick said his time here, at the end, has helped draw the curtain on an even bloodier deployment in northeastern Iraq at the height of the civil war. His battalion lost 26 people that time around.
“You see 26 soldiers die in a short amount of time – it’s difficult,” he said. “You don’t want to ever look at a parent in their eye and say, ‘Your child died in vain.’”
Coming back to a calmer Iraq, where violence has fallen sharply and security forces – however flawed – are patrolling the streets has changed his perspective.
“I know it sounds cliché, but it really has provided closure,” he said.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] [b]
