US returns

US returns six-year stockpile of weapons

The US military is sending back equipment it has used in Iraq through Jordan and Kuwait as it tests possible exits out of the war-torn country.

The convoys that are carrying armored vehicles, weapons and other items out of Iraq, mark the Pentagon's first steps in confronting the complex logistics of transporting the huge arsenal the US military has stockpiled in Iraq over nearly six years.

The move is also part of a wider assessment, to decide what items the military can transfer, donate, sell or throw away once a full-scale withdrawal is underway, Marine Corps and Army officials told The Associated Press.

"Because they are starting to see a potential reduction of forces, they are looking to get more stuff out," Terry Moores, the deputy assistant chief of staff for logistics for Marine Corps Central Command, said on Saturday.

"We started slow, but it's picked up speed" in recent months, he said.

As part of an Iraqi-US security pact, all US troops are to leave Iraq by 2012. The timeline would be fast-tracked should President Barack Obama keep his campaign promise to have American troops out of Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

In a testimony before the US House of Representative earlier this month, the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the Pentagon needed to redefine its withdrawal strategy, saying it did not take into account either the security pact deadline or Obama's possible accelerated timeframe.

The biggest obstacle is the question of how to move tens of thousands of personnel and millions of tons of equipment out of Iraq, according to the testimony by a GAO managing director.

The Office has recommended multiple routes through Jordan, Kuwait and Turkey, where the US military has already constructed bridge overpasses for heavy tanks on the road between the Iraqi border and the Mediterranean ports of Iskenderun and Mersin.

MMA/MMN