Camp Doha was the main US Army base in Kuwait, and played a pivotal role in the US military presence in the Middle East since the 1991 Gulf War and in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The complex is located on a small peninsula on Kuwait Bay, west of Kuwait City. It was initially a large industrial warehouse complex and was taken in hand by the US Army for conversion to its current role in 1998 during Operation Desert Thunder. It has been continuously manned since.
Camp Doha housed both Army Forces Central Command-Kuwait (ARCENT-Kuwait) and Coalition/Joint Task Force-Kuwait (Forward) (C/JTF-KU (Fwd)), making it effectively a nerve center not only for US operations in Iraq, but throughout the Middle East. At its peak, over 2,000 military and civilian personnel were stationed there, with several thousand additional personnel in transit at any given point. In April, 2005 the Army announced the closure of the base, saying that the personnel from Camp Doha would be divided between Camp Buehring and Camp Arifjan. As of mid-2006, though the bulk of personnel and operations have shifted to other installations, the actual closure of Camp Doha has yet to occur.
Famous quotes containing the word camp:
“The triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war. Whilst the hand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the camp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his intellectual power culminated; the compression and tension of these stern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)