The U.S. military has been using bases in Kuwait to equip and train
units headed for Iraq. A leading facility has been Camp Arifjan, about 70
kilometers south of Kuwait City, and Camp Shueiba. Shueiba contains the only
military port for such heavy equipment as main battle tanks and armored
vehicles, Middle East Newsline reported.
"Just as we are very deliberate and methodical going to war — and the
United States does that very well — we also need to be very deliberate and
methodical coming out, because that's a strategic message that not only our
friends here in the region, but our adversaries, watch very carefully,"
Whitcomb said.
On Aug. 1, Defense Secretary Robert Gates flew over Camp Arifjan amid a
briefing of U.S. military logistics capabilities. Gates was told that
Arifjan and Shueiba could process as many as 240,000 troops in 90 days.
About 162,000 U.S. troops have been deployed in Iraq.
"I don't think the [withdrawal] decision is going to be the California
gold rush," Whitcomb said. "We can't just come down helter-skelter."
Officials said the United States was capable of moving about one
brigade -- or more than 3,500 troops and their equipment — per month
through Kuwait. A study by the Joint Chiefs of Staff asserted that the
United States required two years for an orderly withdrawal of the U.S.
military presence in Iraq.
Kuwait has provided the United States with priority access to two berths
in the sheikdom's ports. Jordan and Turkey have also offered port facilities
to the U.S. military.
Camp Arifjan was designated as the processor of U.S. equipment from and
to Iraq. Equipment from Iraq would be washed, disinfected and inspected at
Arifjan in a 10-day process. An MBT takes four days to clean and meet U.S.
Agriculture Department standards.
"We need to be deliberate and we've got that capacity to be deliberate,"
Whitcomb said in an Aug. 1 briefing. "We've got about 60,000 things from a
tank to a Humvee trailer that rolls on wheels that we'll eventually take
out. So, you can imagine."
