US bases in Iraq: an enduring military presence?

[goodhue]

Here are a couple items about US plans for an enduring US military presence in Iraq. Hopefully, democratic party leaders will speak out against an enduring US military presence in Iraq. I know our party leadership has the strength to listen to the grassroots and speak truth to power. But only the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

:toast:

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http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/iraq-intro.htm

Iraq Facilities

A 20 April 2003 report in The New York Times asserted that "the U.S. is planning a long-term military relationship with the emerging government of Iraq, one that would grant the Pentagon access to military bases and project American influence into the heart of the unsettled region." The report, citing anonymous sources, referred to one base at Baghdad's international airport, another near Al-Nasiriyah in the south , the third at the H-1 airstrip in the western desert, and the fourth at Bashur AB in the north.

* * *

The U.S. Army's top general said 28 January 2004 he is making plans based on the possibility that the Army will be required to keep tens of thousands of soldiers in Iraq through 2006. Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, told the House Armed Services Committee of the United States that "for planning purposes" he has ordered his staff to consider how the Army would replace the force that is now rotating into Iraq with another force of similar size in 2005 - and again in 2006.

* * *

By October 2004, it was reported that the US Army, in a move to take a friendlier face, had renamed all 17 of its facilities in and around the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and given them nore noble sounding name with, as well, Arabic names to go along.

In January 2005 it was reported that the Pentagon was building a permanent military communications system in Iraq. The new Central Iraq Microwave System, is to consist of up to 12 communications towers throughout Iraq, along with fiber-optic cables connecting Camp Victory to other coalition bases in the country.


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http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0930/p17s02-cogn.html

Commentary: "A Global Accounting: An Occasional Column"
from the September 30, 2004 edition

US bases in Iraq: sticky politics, hard math

By David R. Francis

If a new Iraq government should agree to let American forces stay on, how many bases will the US request?
One, as the United States Army currently maintains in Honduras? Six, the number of installations it lists in the Netherlands. Or maybe 12?

But a dozen is the number of so-called "enduring bases" located by John Pike, director of GlobalSecurities.org. His military affairs website gives their names. They include, for example, Camp Victory at the Baghdad airfield and Camp Renegade in Kirkuk. The Chicago Tribune last March said US engineers are constructing 14 "enduring bases," but Mr. Pike hasn't located two of them.

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The US already has 890 military installations in foreign countries, ranging from major Air Force bases to smaller installations, say a radar facility. Perhaps bases in Iraq would enable the Pentagon to close a few of those facilities. As part of a post-cold-war shift in its global posture, the Defense Department has been cutting the number of its installations in Germany, which total more than 100. Last week Mr. Rumsfeld testified about a global "rearrangement" of US forces to the Senate Armed Forces Committee.

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Another fear, however, is that without US bases, the various Iraqi factions - the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds - would fall into civil war. In turn, this conflict could drag in Iran, Syria, and Turkey, leading to a widespread conflict in the Middle East. Hope of establishing a democracy in an Arab nation would fade.

To avoid these risks, an Iraq government will accept a US military presence despite popular disapproval, Pike says. "An indefinite American presence in Iraq is the ultimate guarantor of some quasi-pluralistic government."

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Sign Iraq Withdrawal Petition

http://www.pdamerica.org/petition/iraq-exit-petition.php

[understandinglife]

1. Tallil Times........

http://www.afnews.af.mil/iraq/tallil.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/tallil.htm

Just a little sample......


www.missionnotaccomplished.us (a day to reflect on what YOU are going to do to stop, peacefully, the atrocities and lies of Bu$h and his fristian neoconster buddies)

[MidwestTransplant]

2. We don't occupy countries just to leave them

[FreedomAngel82]

4. Exactly

That way they can keep an eye on the oil and who gets it. :mad:

[goodhue]

3. kick

Its hard to get these policy threads to gain traction without attacking party leaders. What's up with that?