U.S. brigade heading to Baghdad

The 3,200 troops and 152 helicopters are the final contingent in a plan to improve security.

By Chris Kraul
Times Staff Writer

May 6, 2007

BAGHDAD — The final troop contingent in President Bush's controversial plan to improve security, a brigade that includes 152 attack and transport helicopters, will arrive soon in the Iraqi capital, a U.S. commander said.

With the arrival of the 3rd Infantry Division's Combat Aviation Brigade, based at Ft. Stewart, Ga., the addition of 28,500 troops begun in mid-February will be complete.

The brigade will be based at Camp Victory near the Baghdad international airport, Maj. Gen. James Simmons, deputy commander of multinational forces, said in an interview Friday.

As the buildup neared completion, violence continued in the capital. A suicide bomber in a line with police recruits outside an Iraqi base near the infamous Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad detonated an explosive vest Saturday, killing 15 and injuring 26 others, police said.

In Kut, southeast of Baghdad, nine insurgents and four Iraqi police officers were reported killed in a battle.

In the north, an explosion aimed at a police patrol in the center of Kirkuk killed two civilians and injured three police officers.

In the south, the Basra airport was reported closed until further notice after insurgent attacks Saturday damaged a runway.

The air combat brigade will increase the U.S.-led forces' helicopter fleet by 34%. Also coming are 3,200 pilots, crew members, mechanics and other support personnel.

Helicopters are increasingly important because insurgent attacks have made ground transport dangerous in many areas of Iraq. The workhorse of the fleet is the UH-60 Black Hawk, which is used to shuttle cargo, troops and other personnel around Iraq. The helicopter fleet also includes the UH-1 Huey and the AH-64 Apache.

Despite the heavier reliance of the U.S. military on choppers, there has been no increase in the fleet since the war began in March 2003, Simmons said.

The announcement in March that the air combat brigade, as well as almost 4,000 other support troops, would be coming in addition to 21,500 extra troops already committed to Iraq infuriated some war opponents, who saw it as a back-door method of squeezing more troops into an unpopular conflict. When completed, the buildup will bring the U.S. troop level in Iraq to 160,000.

Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress have been locked in a bitter struggle over Iraq war funding. Bush vetoed a bill last week that would have made future funding for the war conditional on a timetable for the phased withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The current helicopter fleet in Iraq includes 449 choppers. The Combat Aviation Brigade will be the fourth of the Army's 10 air combat units on duty in Iraq.

Since June 2003, 58 helicopters have been lost in Iraq, 28 of them downed by ground fire. The others crashed in accidents. According to a tally by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, 179 people died in those crashes.