The United States has met all its obligations in Iraq and is “completely on track” for a full military withdrawal by year’s end, said the spokesman for US Forces-Iraq Wednesday. Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan said the command has redeployed 1.6 million pieces of equipment from Iraq and has 800,000 left to go. The number of US troops there is down to about 41,000 from roughly 100,000 in January 2009, while the number of military bases has dropped dramatically from 505 in 2008 to just 23 today, he said. The United States continues to discuss the possibility of keeping some troops in theater longer with Iraqi forces, said Buchanan. The question is, what role would they would play and what legal protections they would have, he said. Although “Iraq is still a dangerous place,” the biggest difference today “is that people here seem universally determined not to go back to sectarian violence,” said Buchanan. “They’re determined to take on these enemies as terrorists. Unlike in the past, they are universally hated and isolated.” (AFPS report by Lisa Daniel) (Buchanan transcript)
Pilot Mixed Up MQ-9 Controls in June 2020 Crash
April 12, 2021
An MQ-9 pilot pulled a wrong lever as the Reaper was taking off in Syracuse, N.Y., causing the remotely piloted aircraft to lose fuel supply and crash in June 2020, according to an Air Force investigation. The MQ-9 was “significantly damaged” at a cost of $6.085 million in the crash…