The US military on Friday closed its command centre for the corps responsible for pouring billions of dollars into major construction and engineering projects across Iraq since the invasion.
In a ceremony at Al-Faw Palace in Camp Victory on Baghdad's outskirts, General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, led tributes to the joint civilian-military effort.
Underneath a three-storey-high American flag, the US Army Corps of Engineers' Gulf Region Division (GRD) flag was rolled up as around 100 soldiers, civilian consultants and contractors looked on in the palace rotunda.
"For nearly six years now, the Gulf Region Division's mission... has constantly returned dividends not only to our mission and achieving our objectives but to the people of Iraq," Odierno said at the ceremony.
"So congratulations on a job well done -- be proud of what you've all accomplished, but understand that we still have work to do."
Since its inception in January 2004, the GRD has completed more than 5,000 civilian and military projects across Iraq at a cost of around nine billion dollars, according to information provided by the US army.
Among those was the construction or renovation of nearly 700 water supply or water treatment plants, 95 fire stations and 155 border posts as well as the renovation of 46 hospitals and the rehabilitation of power stations.
Althought the GRD was being shut down, the US Army Corps of Engineers still has around two billion dollars' worth of projects underway in the country, which US-led forces invaded in March 2003.
More than six years after the invasion of Iraq, US forces are gradually reducing their presence in the country as part of a security agreement signed nearly one year ago between Baghdad and Washington.
Under the terms of the agreement, all American combat troops must leave Iraq by the middle of next year while all US forces must withdraw from the country by the end of 2011.
Major General Michael Eyre, the GRD commander, told AFP following the ceremony that departing Iraq would be bittersweet for him, after having spent 14 months in the country.
"We've invested so much time and energy that part of us will always be here, so you know that you're departing but you'll always leave a part of you here," he said.
Eyre said he hoped to return to Iraq to see whether changes and construction completed by the GRD had been maintained, "because that's really the success in the mission: have we really made a positive impact for the long term?."
