Battery C, 1st Battalion, 77th Field Artillery Regiment, 172nd Brigade Combat Team handed over the JSS to 2nd Company, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Iraqi Army Brigade.
“This ceremony symbolizes the progress made over the past month,” said Col. Dick Francey, 41st Fires Brigade commander and commander of American troops in Wasit province.
Francey said he had confidence the Iraqis would continue the security in the area.
“I know you will do wonderful things,” said Francey. “Insurgencies in the area have gone to the ground and they better stay down or the Iraqi Army will take them down again.”
“We are very happy to receive this station,” said Brig. Gen. Abed Gabr Mazloum, 32nd IA Brigade commander.
The Cobra Battery Soldiers moved onto the JSS in March and improved the living conditions along side rotating Iraqi Army units.
Capt. Timothy Stephenson, Btry. C commander, signed the JSS over to Receivership Secretariat Sameer Al-Haddad, a representative of the prime minister.
This is the fourth JSS in Wasit province to be returned to Iraqi control. The other three were manned by 2nd Battalion, 20th Field Artillery Regiment after the departure of the Georgian Army in August 2008.
Combat Outpost Summers, currently manned by 1st Bn., 77th FA Regt. Soldiers, is scheduled to be given back to the Iraqis later this month.
