Camp Taji - History

History

Al-Taji airfield, in the volatile Sunni Triangle, was originally an Iraqi Republican Guard base during the Saddam era. It was once a center for the manufacture of chemical weapons. UNSCOM found at Taji 6,000 empty canisters designed to be filled with chemical weapons for use in 122mm rockets.

According to the Gulf War Airpower Survey, there was a Sector Operations Center located at Al Taji. The airbase is served by a 5,500-foot-long (1,700 m) runway. Taji was also the largest tank maintenance facility in Iraq.

Taji was heavily bombed during Operation Desert Fox in which 13 different targets in the Camp were hit during the December 1998 air strikes.

The base came under American control following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Read more about this topic:  Camp Taji

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.
    Milan Kundera (b. 1929)

    History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.
    Albert Camus (1913–1960)

    I saw the Arab map.
    It resembled a mare shuffling on,
    dragging its history like saddlebags,
    nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.
    Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)