Only in Iraq a few weeks, nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives learned they were being shipped off to southern Afghanistan, one of the clearest signs of America”s shifting wartime priorities. The transfer, which moved into its final stages Monday, is the largest movement so far of personnel and equipment from Iraq as President Barack Obama puts the focus on the fight in the Taliban heartland.
“We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan,” Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.
It”s now clear some of the troops and firepower will flow directly from Iraq, where the Pentagon plans to gradually draw down its more than 132,000 personnel before the withdrawal of all combat forces by September 2010.
Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban.
“We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq,” said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
Since then, his troops have conducted routine operations while preparing for their departure.
They won”t be replaced — another sign of America”s evolving military map.
