General Whitcomb: Kuwait facilities could handle big troop pullout

Above and Left: Barracks quarters at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. The U.S. military installation, where approximately 9,000 are currently stationed, includes hundreds of barracks, 3 dining facilities and 2 post exchanges.

U.S. commanders in Kuwait said Wednesday that they have enormous capability to handle the tens of thousands of troops and their equipment that would stream out of Iraq during a U.S. withdrawal.

On a Middle East tour to discuss security cooperation with Iraq's neighbors, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates flew over Camp Arifjan, about 40 miles south of Kuwait City, and facilities nearby at Shuaiba, the military's only port conduit for heavy equipment such as tanks and armored vehicles.

Defense officials said that Gates was here to meet Kuwaiti leaders and that his first visit to the country was not specifically geared toward examining withdrawal options.

Lt. Gen. R. Steven Whitcomb, commanding general of the 3rd Army, said the Kuwait facilities have handled as many as 240,000 troops moving into and out of Iraq in as little as a three-month period during the war's major rotations. About 160,000 U.S. troops are currently deployed in Iraq.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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