Camp Fallujah set to close four years after two major battles

Photo By Cpl. Lindsay Sayres | Maj. Gen. John F. Kelly, commanding general, Multi National Force-West, cases the colors signifying the transfer of MNF-West's headquarters to Al Asad Air Base. Kelly has ordered Camp Fallujah to close and handed back to the Iraqis in the next few months. More than 8,000 Marines from the camp have been relocated throughout the Anbar province or sent home.  

FALLUJAH, IRAQ

11.14.2008

Story by Gunnery Sgt. Matthew Butler 

I Marine Expeditionary Force

By Gunnery Sgt. Matthew A. Butler
I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward)

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq – The Multi-National Force - West command element and the last major coalition force units left here for the final time on Nov. 14, marking an end to the two historic battles for Fallujah and the long fight to return the city to normalcy which started more than four years ago.

"The name Fallujah and Camp Fallujah is the most recognized name of the entire Iraqi war - the city of Fallujah – it's always been a tough place," said Marine Maj Gen John F. Kelly, commanding general, MNF-West. "It was a tough place when we took over from the 82nd Airborne and until very recently it was the symbol of al-Qaida and the terrorist power."

"As we leave here and shift the headquarters to a different part of Iraq we're closing down a chapter. I think Fallujah has turned more into a symbol of what these cities can be if you defeat the terrorists and empower the Iraqis to take over for themselves."

Camp Fallujah was home to nearly 8,000 service members from combat and service support units in February when the Camp Pendleton, Calif., based I Marine Expeditionary Forces took charge of al-Anbar.

Now only a few hundred Marines remain to clean up the base before officially handing it over to the Iraqis in the next few months.

Coalition forces began the transition to greater Iraqi control this spring and have been in an advisory and support roll since Anbar returned to Provincial Iraqi Control in September. Closing Camp Fallujah is a direct result of the continued stability in Anbar that made PIC possible.

Some of the bloodiest fighting in the Iraq war, with approximately 95 American deaths, occurred during the second, 46-day battle for Fallujah in November and December of 2004 after al-Qaida and the insurgency laid claim to what is known as the Sunni triangle.

With the insurgency all but eliminated the camp has seen dramatic changes. It no longer needs many of its fortifications. Rows of dirt-filled wire and cloth HESCO and concrete barriers placed around living quarters and soft buildings have been removed.

Sand bags by the thousands have been pulled from windows and emptied. Of the three chow halls only one remains open; the others have been disassembled.

With the level of violence down, so are the causalities at Camp Fallujah's combat hospital.

The hospital, which has seen 7,750 patients in four and half years, is also closing. The last six month the hospital's staff of 25 Navy doctors and corpsmen has treated only one casualty. During sustained combat operations in 2004 the hospital of more than 115 doctors was treating more than 3 serious casualties a day.

The Marines took over Camp Fallujah from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division on March 24, 2004. A week later four Blackwater security contractors were ambushed while escorting a supply convoy. Their bodies were desecrated and drug through the street of Fallujah before being hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

According to Kelly, then the assistant division commander of the 1st Marine Division during his first tour at Camp Fallujah, the Marines received orders to launch the first battle of Fallujah. They moved quickly through the city without the aid of heavy artillery or air support and cleared the urban area in many small squads. However, after a combination of political pressure and orders from higher, they were told to hold their positions and eventually ordered to back out of the city without riding the city of the terrorists.

By November, Fallujah had become a sanctuary for the insurgency. On November 7, 2004, Operation Al-Fajr commenced. Coalition forces, led by Marines, fought back in to the city.

"It had to be cleaned out. Of course in that battle there were a great many American casualties and a far greater amount of destruction to the city," Kelly said.

As the transition to peace and Iraqi self governance continues, Kelly said they are asking for less and less help and for fewer convoys during the day through the city because of the traffic it causes.

"They're worried about traffic congestion more than they are about terrorism because the terrorism for the most part is gone."

Kelly, accompanied by Anbar's provincial chief of police, walked through the streets of Fallujah, Oct. 29, without body armor.

"I walked down to the middle of Fallujah, guarded only by Iraqi police, walking with the police chief with no helmet – no flack jacket. We were trying to make a point and the point was that Fallujah for all intents and purposes is a safe city," Kelly said.

Marines have pulled out of Anbar's cities and urban areas and set up in out lying areas, Kelly told a Pentagon press briefing recently.

Some Marines from here have relocated to nearby Camp Baharia, but in fewer numbers than have moved west to the Al Asad Air Base.

Al Asad, the new home of the MNF-W command element and several other units, is located in north-western Anbar, roughly half-way between Fallujah and Iraq's border with Syria. In addition to moving units around the province, Kelly has reduced his overall troop strength by 40 percent since taking command in February.

"We've closed, actually, a fair number of bases since I've been here. Al Qaim is an example." Kelly said.

Other bases, like Camp Blue Diamond in downtown Ramadi, Combat Outpost Manion and several checkpoints across the province. "We've actually turned over the base at Habbaniya to the Iraqis. So they own the base and we're tenants, but they run the base." Camp Ramadi is in line for the same type of turnover next year while MNF-West continues to step aside and Iraqi security forces and government assume more and more responsibility.

• Date Taken: 11.14.2008
• Date Posted: 11.14.2008 15:09
• Story ID: 26363
• Location: FALLUJAH, IQ