At the peak of the United States’s war in Iraq, the U.S. military had more than 170,000 troops, 500 bases replete with tents and toilets, kitchens and motor pools, and an airline that flew hundreds of times a day across the country.

The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq after nearly nine years of war is believed to be one of the largest removal jobs in history. At the start of the year logistics experts calculated there were nearly 3 million pieces of equipment to be moved, from airplanes, helicopters and tanks to laptops and lights…

Since September 2010, around 2 million pieces of equipment have been redeployed, U.S. officials say, some back to the United States, others to Afghanistan or other locations…

“Someday I truly believe that future military classes … will study the logistics (of our) move out of Iraq.”

What will be studied is the lies accepted as mandate. Agitprop given greater weight than historic fact. No-bid contracts and supply streams whose size, content and volume were determined by cronyism and donations to the Republican Party.

Never before has such a volume of death and destruction been wasted to satisfy the greed and corruption of so few.

Closing down the Iraq war has meant shutting down the U.S. military bases, which numbered 505 at the peak and included everything from small desert fueling depots to massive installations where Americans have been entrenched for years.

The Victory Base complex in Baghdad, the heart of the war operation surrounded by 42 km (27 miles) of concrete blast walls and razor wire, once hosted 40,000 troops and more than 20,000 contractors. Balad, north of Baghdad, had 36,000 residents.

Victory was so big it had a reverse osmosis water plant that could generate 1.85 million gallons a day, an ice plant, a 50-megawatt power generating station, stadium-sized chow halls and a laundromat with 3,000 machines able to do 36,000 loads a day.

Now the generals have moved from Saddam’s missile-damaged palaces, the war operations room has been cleared of computers and phones and the barber shops, DVD stores and restaurants like Burger King, Subway and Green Bean are fast disappearing…

At the peak in 2009, there were more than 400 aircraft which flew daily, Brooks said.

“The MNC-I Aviation brigade averaged 157 missions a day. We had 28 helicopters devoted to just flying passengers around Iraq on scheduled flights.”

Joint Base Balad, with two 11,000-foot runways, had 27,500 takeoffs and landings a month in 2006, second only to London’s Heathrow, U.S. officials said…

In many cases, the cost of moving something wasn’t worth it. In others, the equipment wasn’t worth it.

Billions of dollars worth of gear is left behind to be scavenged or scrapped. A whole nation made poor by our invasion will make do with what they can salvage.

A new standard, a new memorial is being erected for the rest of the world to admire. Krupp and Thyssen would be proud.