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A Bremer wall, or T-wall, is a portable, steel-reinforced concrete blast wall of the type used for blast protection throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Bremer barrier resembles the smaller Jersey barrier, which has been used widely for vehicle traffic control on coalition military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. To indicate that the Bremer barrier is similar but larger, the , intermediate-sized Bremer barriers are usually referred to as Texas barriers, but not to be confused with the Texas constant-slope barrier. Similarly, the largest barriers, which stand around , are called Alaska barriers. Unlike the Jersey barrier, which has sloped sides at the base, some Texas and Alaska barriers have a rectangular ledge base, usable as a bench for sitting or resting and approximately knee-high for a typical adult.
The name is believed to have originated from Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority, who was the Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for post-war Iraq, following the Iraq War of 2003, in the early years of the Iraq War.
During the Iraq War, US forces found concrete to be their most effective weapon to reduce violence and protect the local population from sectarian violence while impeding the movement of insurgents. At an average cost of $600 per wall in the mid-2000s, billions of dollars were spent constructing and placing these concrete fortifications throughout the country, to wall off whole roads and neighborhoods and to create what was dubbed "safe communities." Walling off troubled neighborhoods and maintaining the barriers became the daily mission for many security forces. In Baghdad Sadr City district, for example, over 30 miles of twelve-foot-tall concrete T-wall barriers were employed to create what were dubbed "safe communities."
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