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US tests military exit routes
out of Iraq
By CHELSEA J. CARTER, Associated
Press Writer Chelsea J. Carter,
Associated Press Writer 58 mins
ago
BAGHDAD – The American military
is shipping battlefield
equipment through Jordan and
Kuwait, testing possible exit
routes in advance of a U.S.
withdrawal in Iraq, military
officials said.
The convoys — carrying armored
vehicles, weapons and other
items — mark the Pentagon's
first steps in confronting the
complex logistics of
transporting the huge arsenal
stockpiled in Iraq over nearly
six years.
It's also part of a wider
assessment, ordered by U.S.
Central Command, to decide what
items the military can transfer,
donate, sell or toss away once a
full-scale withdrawal is under
way, Marine Corps and Army
officials told The Associated
Press.
"Because they are starting to
see a potential reduction of
forces, they are looking to get
more stuff out," Terry Moores,
the deputy assistant chief of
staff for logistics for Marine
Corps Central Command, said
Saturday.
"We started slow," Moores said,
but added "it's picked up speed"
in recent months.
The Iraqi-U.S. security pact,
which took effect Jan. 1, calls
for American troops to withdraw
from Iraq's cities by June 30
and completely pull out troops
by 2012 — a timeline that could
speed up if President Barack
Obama keeps to a campaign
promise to have troops out of
Iraq within 16 months of taking
office.
In testimony before the U.S.
House of Representative earlier
this month, the independent
Government Accountability Office
said the Pentagon needed to
redefine its withdrawal
strategy, saying it did not take
into account either the security
pact deadline or Obama's
possible accelerated timeframe.
The biggest obstacle is the
question of how to move tens of
thousands of personnel and
millions of tons of equipment
out of Iraq, according to
testimony by a GAO managing
director.
The U.S. brought most of its
material in through Kuwait, one
of the main staging grounds for
the 2003 invasion. There are
currently more than 140,000 U.S.
troops in Iraq.
"The capacity of facilities in
Kuwait and other neighboring
countries may limit the speed at
which equipment and material can
be moved out of Iraq," the GAO
report said.
It recommended looking at
multiple routes through Jordan,
Kuwait and Turkey, where the
U.S. has already constructed
bridge overpasses for heavy
tanks on the road between the
Iraqi border and the
Mediterranean ports of
Iskenderun and Mersin.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has
said the Pentagon has already
examined exit routes through
Turkey and Jordan. Both
countries, longtime U.S. allies,
support the withdrawal planning
contingencies, said Mullen.
The Marines have made 17
shipments of vehicles and
weapons — totaling 20,000 items
— through Jordan's Aqaba port,
using contractors to haul the
items to either commercial
container ships or U.S. Navy
ships, Moores said in a
telephone interview from
Bahrain, the base of the U.S.
5th Fleet.
"Jordan and Kuwait offer a great
mix of routes and great
infrastructure to get our stuff
out," he said.
The shipments through Jordan
also has given the leaders in
Amman an "understanding about
what it takes to move equipment
and personnel," he said.
"They have already said that if
we are willing to move more
through Jordan as we draw down,
they are willing" to allow it,
Moores said.
Though Jordan has close ties to
Washington, popular sentiment
has been solidly against the war
in Iraq.
The route to Jordan would take
the military through the desert
province of Anbar, which was the
hub of the Sunni insurgency and
where Marines and Iraqi soldiers
fought some of their bloodiest
battles. An uprising by local
Sunni tribes in late 2006 forced
insurgents from their Anbar
strongholds in one of the
pivotal moments of the war.
Meanwhile, the Army has shipped
hundreds of armored and
non-armored vehicles to Kuwait,
said Army. Col. Ed Dorman, who
works on logistics and supply
for Multi-National Corps Iraq.
"We're already reducing what we
have on hand," he said, adding
that the equipment has been
returned to bases in Kuwait or
the United States.
Much of the Army equipment being
moved is material no longer
used, such as older
mine-resistant vehicles — known
as MRAPs — that can be used for
training.
Even if the United States sticks
to the longer-range withdrawal
plans, it still has less than
three years to determine how to
get its forces and equipment out
of Iraq.
"You don't take everything out,"
Moores said, adding that some
items, such as food, water,
barricades and sandbags may be
left.
Moores said the Corps has been
working on a withdrawal plan
with a 2010 deadline in mind for
the Marines, which has been
preparing to expand its presence
in Afghanistan.
"If our focus is correct and our
thought process is correct, we
are well on our way with our
planning," he said. "It won't be
a mass exodus. It will be a
gradual withdrawal." |
