“Only tanks in 1 Division.”
The US recently tried to give 400 tanks in Iraq to Greece as a gift. All Greece had to do was pay the 8-9 million to transport them to Greece from Iraq. I gather that didn’t happen. I suspect we abandoned them. The plan during Bush’s administration was to give them to Iraq. But that apparently changed with the Greek offer.
The tanks were maintained by employees of the mostly secret GD World Services company. You probably won’t find GDWS anywhere on the internet. I know as a former employee that GDWS recruits only within the larger GD labor pool and the military; by invitation. When I looked at their GD Land Systems’ (the cover company’s) website it appeared that every tech position was open in Iraq; meaning the word was out to leave the country before the US military left.
If the US left the 400 or so mostly working tanks then we can expect that the Iraqis will take them. But I’d imagine working them up into a fighting unit and keeping them running without massive US aid will be impossible in the short run.
I understand the spares pipeline was full up until December of 2010. Whether the US consumed those spares or left them or moved them out of country, I don’t know. But the US stopped buying spares for the Abrams sometime in mid-2010 in order to buy the armored trucks the Army needed for the short range fighting in Afghanistan. Not having any spare parts and planning to shut the tank’s production line may have factored in if the Army abandoned the tanks rather than recover them.
Wrong. The 400 tanks offered to Greece were in the US.
We don’t have 400 tanks in Iraq - not since the original 2003 invasion. Also, domestic design tanks cannot be provided to Iraq because they have DU armor layer - so they would not be given to Iraq. [Greece, as a NATO member, is not so restricted.]
The EDA offer to Greece was to accelerate replacing the HA’s 1,067 M48/M60 Patton tanks. 350 of which Iraq has an option to buy. Those 350 Hellenic Army M60A3s are in storage in Greece ATT. Under the CFE treaty, the HA has to dispose of them as excess to treaty limits.
Those 350 M60A3s would double the IA’s tank count...