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BAGHDAD, Iraq (June 29, 2009) - The US army
handed over a base in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, once a
bastion for anti-US insurgents, to Iraqi forces yesterday as the
deadline nears for its pullout from Iraq's cities. The transfer of
the Joint Security Station (JSS) comes barely more than a week
before a June 30 deadline for US forces to pull out of Iraq's urban
centers as required by a security accord signed between Baghdad and
Washington in November.
Today this base returns to its true owner," said US Major
General Daniel Bolger, the commanding general of the 1st Cavalry
Division. "This land has been bought with a very high price - 136
US soldiers and 184 Iraqi soldiers shed their blood to protect Sadr
City (between January 2006 and present)." He added: "We Americans
did not give you this place-you have earned it, paid with Iraqi
blood, sweat and tears." In the aftermath of the 2003 US-led
invasion of Iraq, American forces were welcomed in Sadr City, a
sprawling, predominantly Shiite, slum in northeastern Baghdad that
is home to around 1.3 million people.
But soon after, it became a base for radical Shiite cleric
Moqtada Al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia was repeatedly accused of
sectarian violence against Sunnis and attacks against US forces
before it was routed by US-backed Iraqi forces in March, April and
May 2008. Master Sergeant Nicholas Conner said earlier that the
handover would not be the "first in that area and will not be the
last." "US troops will continue to provide support our Iraqi
security partners, as requested, under the articles of the Sec
urity Agreement," he said. A JSS is a small urban military base in
which US and Iraqi soldiers work together, which operates under an
Iraqi flag, and from which US and Iraqi troops carry out joint
patrols.
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