FOB Delta not just enduring – it’s growing

[unhappycamper]

A worker at Forward Operating Base Delta rests in the shade of a row of new Contained Housing Units, or one-room trailers, as another worker moves one of the concrete barrier walls that will protect this "CHU city" from explosives.


FOB Delta not just enduring – it’s growing
By Ashley Rowland, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, February 7, 2009

KUT, Iraq — At a time when most American military bases across Iraq are shrinking or reverting to Iraqi control, Forward Operating Base Delta is in the midst of a major growth spurt.

Rows of one-room trailers spring up almost overnight on vacant gravel lots, and by mid-February they will replace most of the base’s tent housing. A new theater is scheduled to open in mid-February, and construction is under way on a second dining facility worth $30 million.

Since last May, the U.S. military has pumped $70 million into construction on a base that once had a perimeter so porous that Iraqi farmers and their goats had to be chased off the grounds. But the biggest change is the number of Americans at this former Iraqi air force base.

About 2,000 U.S. troops are stationed here today, up from just 200 last spring.

"It’s totally changed," said Lt. Col. Brian Pierce, the garrison commander.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60536