Withdrawal Symptoms: Signs of Pullout from Iraq

(Sr. Airman Christopher Hubent/USAF)
Johan Spanner writes in The New York Times today about the challenges facing the military as it sets about dismantling about 300 bases and removing 1.5 million pieces of American equipment — everything from weapons and vehicles to coffeemakers — from Iraq.
(Left: U.S. Airmen with the 332nd Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron (ELRS) check the weight and balance of cargo aboard a C-130 Hercules aircraft, at Joint Base Balad, Aug. 26, 2009. Joint Base Balad, the Pentagon;s biggest aerial port operation, processes more than 950 cargo aircraft, 12,000 tons of cargo and 19,000 passengers per month.)
Six years after the U.S.-led invasion, the "largest movement of soldiers and mat?riel in more than four decades" (according to Spanner) is further complicated by continued attacks for Iraqi insurgents; consideration of what will be left behind for Iraqis; and U.S. military needs in Afghanistan.
Yet the U.S. must still maintain supplies and infrastructure for U.S. troops that remain, and will remain until at least 2011, when 50,000 troops will be stationed in an advisory capacity.
"It's a real Rubik's Cube," says Brig. Gen. Paul L. Wentz, speaking at Joint Base Balad north of Baghdad, the withdrawal effort's command center.
And as preparations for withdrawal ramp up, they become increasingly more difficult to stall, should the situation in Iraq deteriorate.
Major troop reductions will not be happening until January, after Iraqi national elections, but the preparations for those troops' departure are happening now.
Every night, an average of 3,500 trucks roll out on sustainment and redeployment missions, and shipping containers filled with lumber, ammunition and barriers used to defend against car bombs are being hauled off — in some cases, to Afghanistan.
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Maybe after tonight's "Beck's Comedy Tour" they'll have something to complain about. I think the Nobel Prize may have worn their poor souls out for the night.
Mercifully, we're finally getting out of this neo con inspired disaster.
GREAT GREAT WE REALLY NEED TO DO THIS AND SHOULD HAVE DONE IT A YEAR AGO..WE HAVE WORN OUT OUR WELCOME A LONG TIME AGO..SO MANY GOOD SERVICE PERSONS WERE KILLED AND MAIMED BY THE ROADSIDE BOMBS FOR WHAT????. BRING EVERYTHING BACK HOME EVERY TRUCK, EVERY WHATEVER.. AND MAKE THEM PAY US FOR THE WAR IN BARRELS OF OIL IF NECESSARY....LET THEM FIGHT THEIR OWN WARS AND SPEND THE LIVES OF THEIR OWN PEOPLE..
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WHY should they have to pay us for a dam.n thing? WE went over there and attacked them! WE are the instigators here, not the Iraqis! Our soldiers, Marines, and equipment wouldn't be there if not for the unneeded war that Bush involved us in.