IRAQ: U.S. forces handover Kalsu base to Iraq

Record ID: 232790

  • Title: IRAQ: U.S. forces handover Kalsu base to Iraq
  • Date: 12th December 2011
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) REPRESENTATIVE OF IRAQI PRIME MINISTER, NURI AL-MALIKI, HUSSAIN AL-ASSADI, SAYING: "Kalsu base is one of the support bases in the middle Euphrates and on behalf of the prime minister, this base has been handed over to the administration and logistic department at the Ministry of Defence." U.S. AND IRAQI SOLDIERS INSIDE HALL (SOUNDBITE) (English) COMMANDER OF U.S. FORCES IN KALSU BASE, LIEUTENANT COLONEL JASON HAYES, SAYING: "Preparations to leave the Kalsu right now, we are on schedule to be able to make it out of here before christmas. We'll be leaving here and going to Kuwait and once we get to Kuwait, we will just wait for further orders."
  • Embargoed: 27th December 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq, Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5DWPUBWSY0UOIIQHVH7LKA178
  • Story Text: US security forces handed over Kalsu base to the Iraqi security forces on Sunday (December 11) in an official ceremony attended by U.S. and Iraqi officials and high-ranking security personnel.
    The representative of Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Hussain al-Assadi, signed the official documents of the handing over of Kalsu base near Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad with Lieutenant Colonel Jason Hayes, commander of the U.S. forces in the base.
    "Kalsu base is one of the support bases in the middle Euphrates and on behalf of the prime minister, this base has been handed over to the administration and logistic department at the Ministry of Defence," al-Assadi said after signing handing over documents with the U.S. forces in Kalsu base.
    For his part, Lieutenant Colonel Jason Hayes said that the U.S. troops in Kalsu base will leave this base and heading to Kuwait.
    "Preparations to leave the Kalsu right now, we are on schedule to be able to make it out of here before christmas. We'll be leaving here and going to Kuwait and once we get to Kuwait, we will just wait for further orders," he said.
    The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq after nearly nine years of war is believed to be one of the largest removal jobs in history.
    At the start of the year logistics experts calculated there were nearly 3 million pieces of equipment to be moved, from airplanes, helicopters and tanks to laptops and lights.
    Almost all of the remaining forces are due to leave Iraq by the end of this year when a bilateral security pact expires, except for a small contingent of under 200 attached to the U.S. embassy.
    Since September 2010, around 2 million pieces of equipment have been redeployed, U.S. officials say, some back to the United States, others to Afghanistan or other locations.
    U.S. President Barack Obama announced last month that U.S. troops would come home at the end of the year as scheduled after talks to keep a small number of American soldiers in Iraq as trainers fell apart over the issue of immunity.
    U.S. officials had asked for around 3,000 U.S. troops to stay in Iraq, but Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government did not have the political capital to push any agreement on immunity through parliament.
    Around 200 U.S. trainers will be attached to the embassy's Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq and 700 civilian trainers will help Iraqi forces train on new U.S. military hardware they have purchased such as F-16 fighters and Abrams tanks.
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