MSG Shawn Walden - Military Timeline

The First Marine Expeditionary Force transferred authority for five provinces in southern Iraq to the Polish-led Multinational Division Central-South, in a ceremony Sept. 3, 2003 at Camp Babylon, Iraq

The First Marine Expeditionary Force transferred authority for five provinces in southern Iraq to the Polish-led Multinational Division Central-South, in a ceremony Sept. 3, 2003 at Camp Babylon, Iraq.

Multinational Division South Central Iraq is headquartered in the amphitheatre at Babylon. Designed to protect the historic Babylon ruins next to the Euphrates river from looters, the camp is home to a number of coalition countries supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom, including Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, all under the command of the Multinational Defense force Southeast, or MND(SE).

When Navy Seabees attached to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) advanced into the ancient biblical city of Babylon at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), they arrived to find the city's museum and its ruins looted and damaged. After Marines secured the city to protect it from further destruction, the Seabees built Camp Babylon around the ancient city in order to protect one of history's most important archaeological treasures. The individual talent of one Seabee led to the repair of one of the museum's most prized re-creations of ancient history; a scale model of the tower of Babel. The tower, according to biblical history, was built by Noah's descendants who intended it to reach up to heaven. God foiled them by confusing their language so they could no longer understand each other.

On the banks of the Euphrates River, a region that was once the center of Jewish culture and study, Jewish Marines and soldiers got a rare chance to celebrate the Sabbath with one of only three military Rabbis' in theater. Army Capt. Avrohom Horovitz a chaplain with 3rd Battalion 27th Artillery Regiment of Ft. Bragg, NC., was invited up to Camp Babylon in Al Hillah from Camp Commando in Kuwait during the last week of June 2003 to minister to the Marines. Years of persecution in Iraq have driven almost all the Jews from Iraq. The region of Babylon was once the center of Jewish study. The Babylon Talmud, a Jewish book of commentary was written near here.

Service members are more connected thanks to new telephone centers being constructed at different base camps and airfields in theater. The second of six phone banks to be constructed in Iraq was completed at Camp Babylon in time for troops to celebrate July 4. The first was constructed at the Air Force Base in Tallil and the four upcoming centers were located in the areas of Al Asad, Mosul, Al Sahra, and Balad. At Camp Babylon, the center was packed with patrons. Before the first call could be made however, much work had to be done. The facility's wooden frame was the handiwork of the Seabees, while five AT&T employees did the installation of the 48 phones. Setting up a satellite telephone in rural Iraq wasn't as difficult as some thought, especially with Navy engineers came on board, according to one AT&T worker. The Marine Headquarters Group at Camp Babylon oversaw service of the phone center by ensuring that the generator powering the bank is fueled, as well as maintaining the tent. Along with a new contracted food catering service that came to Camp Babylon, the new phone center assisted in keeping the troop morale high until they get the long awaited word to return home.

A bipartisan delegation from the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives gave soldiers and Marines supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom a chance to talk to someone from home Aug. 20 at Camp Babylon, Iraq.

The visit, part of a 10-day tour planned to include seven countries in the region, was topped-off by a lunch, during which the members of congress sat and talked with constituents serving in Iraq.

In the arid, ancient Iraqi city of Babylon, soldiers of the 716th Military Police Battalion, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) watched Maj.Gen. David Petraeus, 101st commander, pass their unit's colors to a new commander after a skirmish in Karbala left their former leader, Lt.Col. Kim Orlando, and two other soldiers, dead on 15 October 2003.

According to a January 15, 2005 article in the UK's Guardian and a British Museum report, Camp Babylon and operations ran out of Camp Babylon caused "widespread damage and severe contamination to the remains of the ancient city of Babylon."

The report claims that heavy military vehicles crushed some archaeologically significant sites and vast amounts of sand and earth were removed from the site in order to fill sandbags. Also, because the city was home to a coalition military base it became the site of frequent insurgent attacks which caused further damage to the ancient site.

In September 2003 the base was passed to a Polish-led force, which held it until January 2005 when the site was handed over to the Iraqi culture ministry. In January 2005 Polish forces transferred control of Camp Babylon to the Iraqi Culture Ministry. Polish forces moved to a nearby area. Polish officials said that the moving out of Camp Babylon was as a result of security reasons and not because the base was allegedly damaging the ancient city.

On 10 June 1999, the UN Security Council adopted a detailed resolution that outlined the civil administration and peacekeeping responsibilities in Kosovo and paved the way for peaceful settlement of t

On 10 June 1999, the UN Security Council adopted a detailed resolution that outlined the civil administration and peacekeeping responsibilities in Kosovo and paved the way for peaceful settlement of the conflict and the safe return home of hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanian refugees and displaced persons. The resolution was passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which allowed the security forces to carry weapons to protect themselves and use force in carrying out the resolution's directives. The resolution "authorizes member states and relevant international organizations to establish the international security presence in Kosovo" as set out in the military agreement between NATO and the FRY. That peacekeeping operation was meant to enforce the cease-fire, demilitarize the KLA and other Kosovo Albanian groups, and establish a secure environment for the return of the refugees.

The force had a unified NATO chain of command under the political direction of the North Atlantic Council in consultation with non-NATO force contributors. The NATO countries were united that in the absence of the NATO Joint Guardian force at the core of any international security presence in Kosovo, the refugees would not return and the other NATO objectives would not be met. A NATO force at the core of an international security presence was regarded as the magnet to attract the refugees back. In the absence of a NATO force with American participation, it was the view of the US Government that it was unrealistic to think the Kosovar Albanians would disarm the KLA, something of great interest to Russia. The US believed that if NATO forces deployed, the rationale for the Kosovar Liberation Army having an armed force to protect itself against Serbs would disappear. The Rambouillet envisaged something like 2,500 Serb military and 2,500 police for a year, though with the commencement of Operation Allied Force NATO required all of those forces going, in views of the probability that the Kosovar Albanians would not come home to a situation where those same forces remain at their posts. NATO envisaged the standing up of thousands of Kosovar Albanian police, including possibly people from the KLA, who would be trained by the international community and could serve police functions.

NATO did not contemplate a partition of Kosovo. It had been unofficially suggested that one possible solution was a de facto partition of Kosovo whereby the Russians would patrol the north, the mineral-rich areas, and NATO would patrol the south.

Before Allied Force began operating, NATO had plans to put in a peacekeeping force of 28,000 people. Of that, 4,000 people would have been Americans. By mid-May 1999 NATO had reassessed its Op Plan for the Joint Guardian mission to see to what degree they would need reinforcement beyond the level that was originally foreseen for the KFOR [Kosovo force] international security presence in Kosovo. NATO had 16,000 troops deployed in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia trained for their mission as well as dealing with the enormous refugee inflow. Certain reinforcements from the UK and from Germany were arrived as of mid-May.

The NATO pre-deployment in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was conducted to be in a position to move very quickly into Kosovo to set up an initial military command structure and an initial infrastructure to get the basic functions going. The goal was not only for other NATO troops to come in quickly but also for the transition authority and for the humanitarian relief organizations, which in the very early stages would need a great deal of military back-up, to establish themselves by the time the NATO core element was on the ground in Kosovo.