"Enduring" US military bases in Iraq

[Mattforclark]

http://www.reason.com/links/links032904.shtml

"The size of the near-term U.S. footprint in Iraq could vary depending on just how fast that new Iraqi government gets a handle on security, but the Pentagon is already making plans for any eventuality. Plans for as many as 14 possibly permanent, or in Pentagonese,"enduring" bases are already in motion. Former Iraqi army bases in or around Baghdad, Mosul, Taji, Balad, Kirkuk, Nasiriyah, Tikrit, Fallujah, and Irbil will be upgraded by U.S. engineers to U.S. specs. Several factors are driving the plans for a large U.S. presence, not the least of which are geography and economics."

...

"The thing to do, then, is find a way to build great big, long runways so you can fly in all your supplies. This is cheaper in the long run and will not anger the locals; provided you can secure the approaches to your runways, it's safer too. Plus it also allows you to take all those National Guardsmen who are running your truck convoys non-stop and send them home before they quit and opt not to re-up. So from the Pentagon's point of view, building enduring bases in Iraq makes so much sense that it is not even going to wait for some civilian authority to order it."

...

""The engineering vision is well ahead of the policy vision," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations for the coalition in Iraq recently explained. "What the engineers are saying now is: Let's not be behind the policy decision. Let's make this place ready so we can address policy options." In other words, the civilian policy makers will be presented with a fait accompli. They can opt to keep the bases that the Pentagon has already spent money to build, and put up with the iffy security conditions and bad PR. Or station U.S. troops somewhere outside Iraq where it will be more costly and more difficult to rush them in if they re needed. Oh, and the new spiffy U.S. bases in Iraq will fall into the hands of who knows what if you leave."

[damnraddem]

1. Yeah, gotta have a round of base closings in the U.S.,

and open 14 bases in Iraq. Hey, if they're going to outsource the military, they shouldn't need a draft -- at least not in the U.S.

Hey, they could get Iraqis to constitute a military presence on those 14 bases -- complete outsourcing! Oops, BTDT: Iraq in the 1980s, Iran in the 1970s, and so on.

[drthais]

2. read the book.....

The SOrrows of Empire


an in-depth explanation
of the US plan to create
a web of permanent military bases across the globe

[LeftwingPitbull]

3. That's all Iraq was for anyway.

It is going to be used as a big military base/hub. Bush doesn't care about democratizing the Middle East any more than he wants to democratize America.

And the ten thousand Iraqi police and army hired by Bremer is the same force that tortured people under Hussein. The song remains the same, but the media is too bought off to care.