Departing US troops pack millions of items in Iraq

JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq Everything from helicopters to printer cartridges is being wrapped and stamped and shipped out of Iraq. U.S. military bases that once resembled small towns have transformed into a cross between giant post offices and Office Depots.Soldiers who battled through insurgents and roadside bombs are now doing inventory and accounting. Their task: reverse over the course of months a U.S. military presence that built up over seven years of war.”We’re moving out millions of pieces of equipment in one of the largest logistics operations that we’ve seen in decades,” President Barack Obama said in a speech Monday hailing this month’s planned withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

The orderly withdrawal is a far cry from the testosterone-fueled push across the berm separating Kuwait and Iraq, when American Marines and soldiers pushed north in the 2003 invasion, battling Saddam Hussein’s army while sleeping on the hoods of their vehicles and eating prepackaged meals.”I think it’s probably more challenging leaving, responsibly drawing down, than it is getting here, because you just have to figure out where everything is and getting it out of here. Are there enough airplanes, ships, containers, and do we have enough time to do that and meet the president’s mandate?” said Col. David F. Demartino, who is responsible for infrastructure and support services at Balad, which is home to 25,000 troops and civilians.

In essence the drawdown has been happening since late 2008. That’s when the U.S. started to reduce its numbers following the surge, which raised the American presence to about 170,000. Now the U.S. has just under 65,000 troops in the country, and the withdrawal is reaching a more furious pace as the August deadline approaches.Only 50,000 U.S. service personnel will remain after August. All troops are supposed to leave and all bases close by the end of next year, unless Iraq asks the U.S. to renegotiate their agreement to allow a continued American presence.In mid-July, JSS Mahmoudiya – once a U.S. position just south of Baghdad in one of Iraq’s most dangerous areas – was a ghost town. Tents were abandoned, covered with foam to retard fire, and the white-walled cafeteria was barren except for a few refrigerators holding drinks. The joint operations command was stripped of almost everything, including the big-screen TVs on which military personnel once watched operations.

The next day, it was handed over to the Iraqi government to become an army facility.Each handover involves a painstaking process of inventorying everything on the base that the soldiers aren’t taking with them. Every item is assessed to see if it can be moved and if so, whether it is needed anywhere else in the country. Many of the materials – water tanks, generators, and furniture – are eventually donated to the Iraqi government. As of July 27, $98.6 million worth of equipment has been handed over, most to the Iraqi army and Interior Ministry.More than 400 bases are being closed down or handed over to the Iraqi military. By September, the American military will have fewer than 100 bases in the country, down from a high of 505 in January 2008.

Some of these bases look somewhat like small towns with elaborate dining facilities serving tacos and crab legs and gyms with rows of treadmills.About half the vehicles – what the military describes as “rolling stock” – that have left Iraq have gone to Afghanistan. More than 180,000 items like weapons or communications equipment have also been sent to Afghanistan over the past year.In the past, when troops rotated into Iraq they brought some weapons and other equipment with them. But they inherited most of their equipment – including Humvees and other armored vehicles – from the unit they replaced.But now as troops aren’t being replaced, the last guys out must leave their equipment at the door to be redistributed, whether back to the U.S., other units in Iraq or to Afghanistan.

That makes places like the Central Receiving and Shipping Point at Balad “the center of the universe,” as one visiting officer nicknamed it. Equipment such as howitzers and helicopter blades or shipping containers and pallets arrives for redistribution.Sgt. 1st Class Stephen Latch runs the CRSP. He spent his first tour in Iraq with the infantry kicking down doors and hunting down members of Saddam’s regime. The only time he really thought about logistics was to wonder when his ammo and food would arrive.Now he’s at the center of the logistical version of a major offensive, helping ensure that the equipment goes south to Kuwait, the main exit point. Most material is driven down the heavily guarded main highway from Baghdad to the border, a more than 300-mile route. So far there have been no reports of significant attacks on any convoys.

Latch said when he started his deployment last summer, they moved an average of about 2,500 items a month. Now he’s moving almost six times that amount, and it’s mostly going south.And people want it faster. It used to be something could sit in the CRSP yard for 45 days before heading to Kuwait, Latch said. But now if it’s there for five days, people start calling and want to know why.”We have a very, very aggressive attitude,” Latch said. “Everybody knows the stuff is going south. It’s going to move no matter what. You can either fight the current or you can just push as hard as you can to get that stuff down there fast.”The drawdown has not been without hiccups. The military was embarrassed by a report in the Times of London that contractors did not properly dispose of environmental waste removed from U.S. military bases.But U.S. commanders say they are addressing problems and are confident they will be able to meet the president’s deadline.

Demartino said that while going through shipping containers, buildings and offices at Joint Base Balad, soldiers have been stunned at the materials hoarded over the years in nooks and crannies all over the base.The biggest surprise was the thousands of printer cartridges tucked away by soldiers worried they would one day run out.”I walked through a few of these buildings, and I was thinking this is like Office Depot, and it’s just people going ‘I don’t want to run out. Let’s get them!'” he said. “I think it’s the mindset of ‘We’re never going to leave.'”(AP)

discovery of large natural gas could lead to new Lebanon-Israel war

BEIRUT The discovery of large natural gas reserves under the waters of the eastern Mediterranean could potentially mean a huge economic windfall for Israel and Lebanon, both resource-poor nations – if it doesn’t spark new war between them.The Hezbollah militant group has blared warnings that Israel plans to steal natural gas from Lebanese territory and vows to defend the resources with its arsenal of rockets. Israel says the fields it is developing do not extend into Lebanese waters, a claim experts say appears to be correct, but the maritime boundary between the two countries – still officially at war – has never been precisely set.

“Lebanon’s need for the resistance has doubled today in light of Israeli threats to steal Lebanon’s oil wealth,” Hezbollah’s Executive Council chief Hashem Safieddine said last month. The need to protect the offshore wealth “pushes us in the future to strengthen the resistance’s capabilities.”The threats cast a shadow over what could be a financial boon for both nations, with energy companies finding what appear to be substantial natural gas deposits in their waters.

Israel is far ahead in the race to develop the resources. Two fields, Tamar and Dalit, discovered last year, are due to start producing in 2012, and experts say their estimated combined reserves of 5.5 trillion cubic feet (160 billion cubic meters) of natural gas can cover Israel’s energy needs for the next two decades.In June, the U.S. energy company Noble Energy, part of a consortium developing the fields, predicted that Israel will also have enough gas to export to Europe and Asia from a third field – Leviathan, thought to hold up to 16 trillion cubic feet (450 billion cubic meters) of gas.

Israel relies entirely on imports to meet its energy needs, spending billions to bring natural gas from Egypt and coal from a variety of countries. So just freeing the country from that reliance would have a major impact.When Tamar begins producing it could lower Israel’s energy costs by a $1 billion a year and bring $400 million a year in royalties into government coffers. That suggests a total of about $40 billion in savings and $16 billion in government revenues over the total yield of the field. Those numbers would only rise as Leviathan comes on line.

“Israel’s always looked for oil,” said Paul Rivlin, a senior research fellow with Tel Aviv University’s Dayan center. “But I don’t think it ever thought of itself as becoming a producer. And now that you’ve got a high-tech economy that’s doing quite well, this comes as an added bonus.”

Hezbollah’s warnings, however, quickly followed the announcement by Houston, Texas-based Noble Energy.Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, warned that Israel is “turning into an oil emirate while ignoring the fact that the field extends, according to the maps, into Lebanon’s territorial waters.”

Israel’s Petroleum and Mining commissioner at the National Infrastructure Ministry Yaakov Mimran, called those claims “nonsense,” saying Leviathan and the other two fields are all within Israel’s economic zone.”Those noises occur when they smell gas. Until then, they sit quietly and let the other side spend the money,” Mimran told the Israeli daily Haaretz.

Maps from Noble Energy show Leviathan within Israel’s waters. An official with Norway’s Petroleum Geo-Services, which is surveying gas fields in Lebanese waters, told The Associated Press that from Noble’s reports there is no reason to think Leviathan extends into Lebanon. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized by his company to speak on the subject.

The rumblings are worrisome because Israel and Hezbollah each accuse the other of intending to spark a new conflict following their devastating 2006 war. That fighting, in which Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid sparked a massive Israeli bombardment, killed about 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis.

Since then, there has been a rare interval of peace. Hezbollah, a close ally of Syria and Iran, has not fired a rocket into Israel since. Israeli officials, however, say they believe Hezbollah has managed to triple its prewar arms stockpile to more than 40,000 rockets.The warnings from Hezbollah and Berri could be as much for domestic consumption as directed as Israel, aiming to press for the passage of a long-delayed draft oil law, needed before any Lebanese fields can be developed.

Oil and gas exploration has been a source of disagreement between Lebanese politicians over the past decade. The change of several governments and disputes over what company should do the surveying have caused delays.In October, Petroleum Geo-Services said fields in Cypriot and Lebanese waters “may prove to be an exciting new province for oil and gas in the next few years,” noting signs of deposits in Lebanon, though their size is still not known. “It is very encouraging for Lebanon,” the PGS official told AP.

Any finds could help Lebanon’s government pay off what is one of the highest debt rates in the world, at about $52 billion, or 147 percent of the gross domestic product.Israel and Lebanon are among the few countries in the Middle East without substantial, lucrative natural resources. Israel has built a place for itself with a powerful high-tech sector, while Lebanon has boomed in recent years with tourism and real estate investment. While the gas may not transform them into Gulf-style spigots of petro-cash, it would be a major boost.

Rivlin doubts Israel could become a significant exporter, saying nearby countries don’t need or aren’t willing to buy from it, and the costs of liquifying gas for transport to further markets like Europe may be prohibitive. But Eytan Gilboa, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University, said that with the world “so hungry for energy,” Israel won’t have a problem finding buyers.But the development raises security worries, as the offshore gas infrastructure could become a target. During the 2006 fighting, Hezbollah succeeded in hitting Israeli warships off Lebanon with its rockets.”Once those rigs start producing gas, it’s going to be difficult to secure them,” Gilboa said. “So on the one hand, you reduce dependency on imports in times of crisis, but at the same time, you make yourself vulnerable because those sites are exposed.” (AP)

official Iraqi : Iranians seized Iraqi oil well

Mohammed Haj Aziz

BAGHDAD  Iraq’s deputy foreign minister says Iranian troops have seized an oil well in southern Iraq along their disputed border.Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Haj Aziz said Friday that Iranian troops seized oil well No. 4 Thursday night.

He said he did not know whether Iranians were still in control of the oil well. He said the Foreign Ministry and the Oil Ministry are coordinating over what steps to take and were considering summoning the Iranian ambassador to discuss the issue on Saturday.

Such incidents have happened before along the Iran-Iraq border, which was never clearly delineated after the brutal war between the two countries in the 1980s.