U.S. Iraq prepares to exodus23: 48 15/03/2010, Martin Chulov, editorial, guardian.co.uk, Iraq, U.S. foreign policy, us, us military, us politics, worl

U.S. Iraq prepares to exodus23: 48 15/03/2010, Martin Chulov, editorial, guardian.co.uk, Iraq, U.S. foreign policy, us, us military, us politics, world affairs, Guardian Unlimited

Each night, a giant base north of Baghdad, a team that moves to make a living armies are preparing for a mission to set the time in Iraq, more than any other act that makes the invasion of seven years.

Their leader is the U.S. official to organize high-level military withdrawal, a man who claims that one of the highest levels of job satisfaction in the country.

"I have the best job in Iraq right now," says Brigadier General Paul Wentz, 13 U.S. military Sustainment Command. "No doubt about it."

If the assessment reflects the full year prior to the occupation, or the imminent end of a war increasingly unpopular, or that his staff had prepared so well that can not fail, is open to conjecture. Either way, men and women of Sustainment Command 13 are anxious to begin the largest movement of troops and equipment anywhere in the world, from Vietnam, more than 40 years.

The order probably will within 60 days after being declared the result of the recent Iraqi election. Vote counting is painfully slow - only 65% of the votes had been counted more than a week after election day on March 7. But if, as the White House, Obama hopes that the result is the time considered to be credible, the chief U.S. commander end the war that has been described previously as "silly."

As soon as Wentz get a call from the U.S. commander in Iraq General Ray Odierno, a massive network of trucks, planes and boats will start evacuating some 45,000 soldiers and over 1 million tons of equipment, since the large excavators, water coolers, and hundreds of different types of equipment and weapons used to fight and run the war.

The withdrawal is seen as a big pay day for the Iraqi army. Last year the U.S. government established a limit of $ 30 million in equipment that commanders can leave at each facility - an increase of 15 times the time the guidelines were written five years ago.

A total of 31m will be packed and stacked products, including the 43,000 military vehicles, 600 helicopters strange, 120,000 containers and 34,000 tons of ammunition. Left out is estimated that 240,000 trucks and 119 cargo planes sent.

The withdrawal is only 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq on August 30, none of them in combat roles, and reduce the number of bases from 290 to fewer than 10. Even with the presence of other U.S. withdrawal is likely to be perceived in Iraq and elsewhere, as the final act of war.

It is a milestone Wentz is well aware of. "This will be a chapter in history and really try to make sure it is a good chapter in history," the prelude to the huge Balad air base, near where his works are still coordinating the movements of more than 3,000 vehicles across the U.S. Iraq every day. "Our guys are still busy and we like to feel they are making a difference. Success for us will be if we wake up in September, and nobody knows that they have gone."

That may be the benchmark in Iraq, where people long ago began to rant against convoys used by large and slow to snarl traffic, and endless delays at checkpoints, often with U.S. soldiers .. UU .. But not in the U.S., another key indicator is more important - to repeat the mistakes of the U.S. withdrawal end of Iraq in 1991.

That withdrawal was characterized by delays, loss of equipment and incompetence, and has since been seen as a case study in how not to do things.

"We learned a lot since then," says Wentz. "We have Indiana Jones stores that nobody knows what's inside.

"Many of the bad things that came out of the first Gulf War have been corrected. We've seen a lot of technology. This is very important to the American taxpayer. We must be fiscally responsible and fund managers of good governance.

Although the bulk of the heavy lifting has yet to begin, tanks and military trucks known as giant MRAP is already underway, some parts of Iraq with the units that came with others and prepare for another war.

"The team will go south and most likely be reworked in Kuwait and sent to the people of Afghanistan," said Wentz.

"Some of the containers go through the port of Aqaba in Jordan, and also the port of Umm Qasr. Every month we throw more and more capacity, but until now, most are components that have accumulated over years .

The preparation for the big move has been dubbed Operation Clean Sweep.

Most troops will fly out of Iraq to Kuwait, where it will plug into a well established network of U.S. military flight.

The main roads of Iraq are safer now, but the military still prefers to keep as many troops as possible away from the 10-hour south of Kuwait. The main street of the backbone of Iraq, known as Route Tampa, was built to move armies. Sealed four-lane highway was built by Saddam Hussein to move his troops and equipment at the head of Iran and back home. He also had a direct route to Kuwait.

The U.S. and British armies used the Tampa route to reach Baghdad in 2003. And U.S. convoys have continued to use ever since, despite being highly targeted by militants launched ambushes and bombs detonated countless sand berms that line the roads.

Captain Jason Vivian Ordinance 80th Battalion, based in Pennsylvania, is in charge of a central courtyard of the Balad base, which will become one of the busiest centers in Iraq when to move Odierno has ruled. For him to get the stock retreat is the pinnacle of a career.

"This is the reason he joined the military," he says, standing between rows of cranes and heavy armor. "The rise and invasion were important, especially for a logistician, but for me is what it is."

Iraq
U. S. Military
U.S. foreign policy
U. S. Politics
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Martin Chulov


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