U.S. Slowly Returns Anbar to Iraq

[unhappycamper]

U.S. Slowly Returns Anbar to Iraq
Atlanta Journal-Constitution | By Robert W. Gee | February 25, 2008

Camp Blue Diamond, Iraq --- The mess hall is boarded up. The barbershop is gone. So is the Internet cafe and the laundry. The metal trailers that once were home to more than 1,000 U.S. troops have been hauled away.

The dismantling of this U.S. military base on the outskirts of Ramadi, once among the most dangerous cities in Iraq and now one of its safest, is an emblem of the drawdown of U.S. forces under way in Anbar province, and elsewhere in Iraq, after last year's troop surge.

U.S. officials will hand over Blue Diamond, a former Saddam Hussein vacation retreat on the banks of the Euphrates River, on March 1 to the governor of Anbar. It is the third U.S. base to close in Ramadi since October. There is one left.

The number of U.S. combat battalions operating in Ramadi, the provincial capital of 400,000, has diminished to two from five in less than a year. The Army combat brigade that has been based here since January 2007 is scheduled to start leaving in a month and will not be replaced. At the same time, violence has become so rare in the city that some Americans have started to venture outside compounds without body armor.

"We're not going to leave this area less secure than it was," said Col. John Charlton, commander of 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, "because the Iraqis can do it now."


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,162680,00.html