The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has accomplished its mission of mobile ordnance cleanup in Iraq, and will now move operations to a stationary location near Baghdad.

In a change of mission ceremony Nov. 21 in Iraq, the Coalition Munitions Clearance (CMC) Program ended, and the effort to destroy unusable munitions became the Coalition Munitions Disposal (CMD) Program.

Under the CMC Program, mobile teams traveled the country destroying caches of enemy ammunition. The operation was managed by the Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville.

"The ammunition sites that were a concern have all been cleared and the ammunition depot has been turned over to the Iraqi army for their control and operation," said Bill Sargent, Huntsville Center’s CMC and CMD program manager.

The new CMD mission will involve a centralized collection point for disposing of unserviceable U.S. ammunition and unexploded ammunition recovered by the field units during their operations. The site will also destroy any caches of munitions found and brought to the site.

"During the past five years, and through the successful partnership with U.S. Army Central and Huntsville Center, this $1.5 billion program destroyed more than 346,000 short tons of explosive remnants of war at 51 clearance sites, denying the enemy the use of these hazardous materials for improvised explosive devices that would have caused untold loss of life and property," said Col. Rock Donahue, director, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, Engineers.

At the height of the program, 18 mobile teams were operating in Iraq to support the CMC mission, and local national labor and subcontractors were hired at each of the 51 clearance sites.

An estimated 600,000 tons of enemy ammunition was captured following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. This deadly harvest had to be disposed of, and in July 2003, Huntsville Center’s Ordnance and Explosives Directorate received the Captured Enemy Ammunition disposal mission. CEA provided assistance in the controlling and disposing of massive stockpiles of munitions in Iraq.

The CEA mission evolved into the CMC program and the Depot Operations Program in February 2006. The CMC program was tasked with the subsurface clearance of previously destroyed ammunition sites in Iraq, while the Depot Operations Program was tasked with standing up and operating two ammunition depots for the newly-formed Iraqi army.