U.S. military takes first step to quit Iraqi cities

By Tim Cocks

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military took a step towards pulling combat troops from Iraqi cities on Saturday, moving out of a Baghdad base that Iraqi officials said would be dismantled and converted back into a shopping mall.

It was the first U.S. military base to be handed over to Iraq since U.S. forces came under Iraqi authority on January 1 in step with a new bilateral security pact.

The pact, which replaced a U.N. mandate, requires Iraqi authorisation for U.S. military operations, gives U.S. forces until mid-2009 to pull combat troops out of Iraq's towns and cities, and until 2011 to withdraw completely.

Brigadier-General Robin Swan, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said the handover of Forward Operating Base Callahan in northern Baghdad was "tremendously significant."

"By June 30th, combat formations are out of the cities. This was a major forward operating base, with 600 soldiers ... three short weeks ago," he told Reuters.

DECAYED

U.S. forces set up the base in March 2007 around an abandoned shopping centre, now decayed and riddled with bullet holes, in a bid to repel Shi'ite militias from the largely Sunni Adhamiya district. It has been quiet for months.

Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Pappal, who heads the base, handed a giant key to Hadi Jadoo, a trade ministry official, as Iraqi army snipers watched from the roof.