For most of my Navy life, the Iraqi port of Um Qasr was a target. It was where Iraqi oil smugglers in the service of Saddam’s grotesque state apparatus topped off their tanks before trying to hug the seam between Iranian coastal waters and the open sea. It was headquarters for the (admittedly piddling) Iraqi Navy. It was close to the Iraqi Seersucker sites that threatened US and coalition warships attempting to enforce UN sanctions.
These days?
It’s a port visit:
This week marked the first-ever overnight port visit by a U.S. ship to an Iraqi port. The Chinook, a coastal patrol ship, took on supplies and fuel at Umm Qasr.
Chinook crew members talked with Iraqi officers. More visits are planned by Navy and Coast Guard vessels.
Times change.
I doubt that it will ever be much of a liberty port that anybody looks forward to.
I’ve done more target folders for that area, your CSSC-3 included that I care to remember. Enough that the first time I overflew it in 2004 I had a real surreal feeling about it. No EW radars or TT painting us.
Talking about regime changes, I made a bet 10 years ago that by 2010 we’d make port visits to Bandar Abbas. I’m gonna have to pay. Not one of my best predictions but at the time it was made with some good moves towards regime change in Iran, having started with Khatamis election, student uprisings, etc. Oh well, 2 cases of Guinness coming up next year.
Hey, you still have 9 months to go… get over there and make something happen!
Ahh. it’s about done. Frankly it was more wishfull thinking than good analysis, but beer is beer.
Since I lost track of most of the guys I made the bet with, will just have to find a replacement….
Would this qualify as yet another “grim milestone”?
take a look at your air nav charts.
find the biggest tower just NW of the port.
stop on by and tell the folks at Camp Bucca i said hey.
Hey Bos’n, which way is the gut?