The last US combat brigade pulled out of Iraq at dawn yesterday, a key milestone in the withdrawal of US forces more than seven years after the US-led invasion ousted former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Under the cover of dark, the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, crossed the border into Kuwait ahead of the planned declaration of an end to US combat operations in Iraq by an Aug. 31 deadline.
“Yes, they did,” Lieutenant Colonel Eric Bloom said, when asked if the brigade had crossed into Kuwait. “The last one crossed at about 6am this morning.”
PHOTO: REUTERS/US ARMY
“They have a few more days to clean the equipment, prepare the equipment, get it ready for shipment and then they’ll fly out [to the US],” he said.
It took two days for 360 vehicles and 1,200 soldiers to travel from Camp Liberty on Baghdad’s outskirts and Camp Taji north of the capital, through the Shiite south, and into the Gulf emirate, Bloom said.
He said the rest of the 4,000-strong brigade left Iraq by air.
Captain Russell Varnado at Camp Arifjan, a major US base about 70km south of Kuwait City, said “the combat troops have finished moving.”
“The troops are transitioning now. They are scheduled to go back home soon,” he said, without giving a specific date.
About 56,000 US soldiers remain in Iraq, with that figure set to drop to 50,000 by Sept. 1. At that point, the US mission in Iraq will be re-named “Operation New Dawn,” from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” — the name given to US operations here since the invasion.
The remaining 6,000 soldiers who will leave the country in the next two weeks are clustered throughout Iraq, Captain Sarah Baumgardner said.
“It is about a transition to a change of mission, going from combat operations to stability operations,” Major General Stephen Lanza said in an interview with US television channel MSNBC.
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