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Last Polish Troops Come Home From Iraq

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  • Last Polish Troops Come Home From Iraq

    LAST POLISH TROOPS COME HOME FROM IRAQ

    AFP
    28 oct 08

    WARSAW (AFP) -- The last group of Polish soldiers stationed in Iraq
    returned home Tuesday formally ending Poland's mission in the country
    that began after the United States toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam
    Hussein in 2003.

    "The last soliders have come home," Polish army spokesman
    Lieutenant-Colonel Dariusz Kacperczyk told AFP Tuesday.

    An aircraft carrying approximately 100 soldiers touched down Tuesday
    morning at a military base in Szczecin, north-west Poland.

    Poland's Minister of Defence Bogdan Klich will officially greet the
    men in ceremonies scheduled at the base for Wednesday.

    Poland formally closed its mission on October 4 with ceremonies at
    the Diwaniyah military base where Polish troops were stationed some
    180 kilometres south of Baghdad.

    A total of 2,600 Polish soldiers were deployed in Iraq in 2003. The
    contingent was gradually reduced to 900.

    In its more than five years of military involvement in Iraq, Poland
    lost 21 soldiers and saw 70 others wounded, according to US military
    records.

    Around 15,000 individual Polish soldiers had served in Iraq since
    the 2003 war.

    Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who came to power in October 2007,
    pledged a quick withdrawal from Iraq during his election campaign.

    With the withdrawal by Warsaw, the US-led coalition that invaded Iraq
    in 2003 has further shrunk.

    In May 2003, two months after the US invasion, the occupying force
    was made up of 150,000 Americans and 23,000 other troops from 40
    countries. Now, US numbers are around 144,000 while the coalition
    has shrunk to less than 10,000.

    Besides the US, the coalition now is made up of: Albania, Armenia,
    Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, El Salvador,
    Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia,
    Romania, Tonga, and Ukraine.
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