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• Located about 40 miles north of Baghdad, Camp Anaconda is one of the largest U.S. Military bases in Iraq. The base hospital takes up one quadrant of Camp Anaconda and is the second-largest United States medical facility in Iraq. The base has four dining halls, two swimming pools, several fast food restaurants and is home to over 25,000 soldiers and contractors.

• Fast Facts

  1. Official name: Logistics Support Area Anaconda
  2. Formerly: Al-Bakir Air Base
  3. Occupies 15 square miles
  4. Popular destination for visiting politicians
  5. Has its own bottled water manufacturing plant

• Balad Airbase

  Camp Anaconda also acts as U.S. Air Force Balad Airbase, the busiest airport in Iraq. The U.S. Military has over 200 helicopters and various other aircraft stationed at the base, which acts as the hub for supplies coming into Iraq. GlobalSecurity.org: Balad Airbase

• Toxic Smoke?

  For four years, all garbage from the base was placed in large open pits, doused it in jet fuel and then burned. In December of 2008, CNN reported that several soldiers who had been stationed at the base complained of health problems and believed that these problems may be related to the potentially toxic smoke that spewed from the garbage pits. Pentagon officials stated that the health issues reported by the soldiers should not pose a long-term health threat, but bioenvironmental engineering flight commander Lt. Col Darrin Curtis called the base "the worst environmental site I have personally visited."CNN: Effects of toxic smoke worry troops returning from Iraq (December 15, 2008)

• Related Mahalo Pages

  Iraq War | Afghanistan War | War on Terror | Iraq | U.S. Air Force

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