FOB Danger handed over

In this post, I wrote about the various bases that had been given over to Iraqi control. Most of them were in Kurdish and Shiite areas, i.e., areas that did not see as much violence over all as in the Sunni areas.

Today, the 29th base was turned over to the Iraqis, and this one was a special one.

FOB Danger is in Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein. The significance of giving such a place back to the Iraqis, in a Sunni area no less, should not be overlooked.

Col. Mark E. McKnight, commander of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, hands the keys to former dictator Saddam Hussein’s Tikrit, Iraq, palace to Hamad Hamoud Shagtti (left), the governor of Salahuddin province, during a Tuesday ceremony. Insurgents fired a mortar at during the ceremony, but the round was a dud and no one was injured. Bassim Daham / AP Photo

The implications were certainly not lost on the terrorists. They dropped a mortar shell near the ceremonies.

(FOB Danger was also the HQ for the 42nd Infantry Division, whose homegoing I wrote about here.)