FORT BRAGG -- Members of the 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team will deploy to Iraq next spring to help U.S. forces as they try to make sure the Iraqi government can control the country, Army Chief of Staff George W. Casey Jr. said Friday.
The 2nd Brigade will be in Iraq in support of several hundred soldiers from the 18th Airborne Corps Headquarters, who are scheduled to go to Iraq in January to take command of the 49,000 or so U.S. troops who remain there.
The group will oversee the transition of the U.S. role in Iraq from a military one to a civilian one.
As the U.S. military mission winds down, Casey said, "I can't think of anyone better to turn out the lights" than the 18th Airborne.
Casey was at Fort Bragg on Friday with John M. McHugh, secretary of the Army. The pair sat in on a review of a two-week training exercise the 18th had just completed.
Role-playing exercise
The intensive training was done at a mock operations center built on the base to look like one in Iraq.
Actors played the roles of Iraqi government and military officials, media representatives and others in situations that soldiers have experienced in recent deployments, or that might be expected to occur.
"They're on track. They're ready," Casey said of the headquarters team, which has more training planned before it deploys.
In a short question-and-answer session with reporters, McHugh also said the Army is still working to solve the "frustrating mystery" of the deaths of 10 infants whose families had lived in base housing at some point since 2007.
Asked about the wide-ranging review of issues associated with the possible repeal of the military's don't ask, don't tell policy on homosexuals, McHugh said a report is expected to be completed on time, by Dec. 1. He said analysis of the data from a survey of 400,000 service members and 150,000 military spouses has not been finished.
