[WCUSP] : [pdx] those permanent US bases in Iraq

[yvonne simmons]

:>  Nation BLOG | Posted 11/17/2006
> >
> >            The Uncovered War: Permanent Bases in
> Iraq
> >>            Tom Engelhardt
> >>
> >>            Looked at in a clear-eyed way, almost
> all the strategies
> >> floating around Washington at this moment for
> "redeployment" or "phased
> >> withdrawal" are not actual withdrawal plans. They
> are complex schemes for
> >> hanging on to some truncated imperial presence at
> the heart of the oil
> >> lands of the planet -- and as such are doomed to
> fail. Like Richard 
> >> Nixon's
> >> Vietnamization program (which withdrew American
> ground forces while
> >> ratcheting up the use of American air power),
> these are Iraqification
> >> policies. But to grasp what they might actually
> mean, you need to be able
> >> to assess two key aspects of our Iraqi venture
> that mainstream newspapers
> >> essentially have not cared to cover-first and
> foremost, the permanent
> >> facts-on-the-ground the Bush administration has
> been so intent on 
> >> building
> >> there since 2003.
> >>
> >>            As the New York Times revealed in a
> front-page piece by Thom
> >> Shanker and Eric Schmitt on April 19, 2003, just
> after Baghdad fell, the
> >> Pentagon arrived in the Iraqi capital with plans
> already on the drawing
> >> board to build four massive military bases (that
> no official, then or 
> >> now,
> >> will ever call "permanent"). Today, according to
> our former Secretary of
> >> Defense, we have 55 bases of every size in Iraq
> (down from over 100); 
> >> five
> >> or six of these, including Balad Airbase, north
> of Baghdad, the huge base
> >> first named Camp Victory adjacent to Baghdad
> International Airport, and
> >> al-Asad Airbase in western Anbar province, are
> enormous -- big enough to
> >> be reasonable-sized American towns with multiple
> bus routes, 
> >> neighborhoods, a
> >> range of fast-food restaurants, multiple PX's,
> pools, mini-golf courses
> >> and the like.
> >>
> >>            Though among the safest places in Iraq
> for American reporters,
> >> these bases have, with rare exceptions, gone
> completely undescribed and
> >> undiscussed in our press (or on the television
> news). From an engineering
> >> journal, we know that before the end of 2003,
> several billion dollars had
> >> already been sunk into them. We know that in
> early 2006, the major ones,
> >> already mega-structures, were still being built
> up into a state of
> >> advanced permanency. Balad, for instance, already
> handled the levels of 
> >> daily air
> >> traffic you would normally see at Chicago's
> ultra-busy O'Hare and in
> >> February its facilities were still being ramped
> up. We know, from the
> >> reliable Ed Harriman, in the latest of his
> devastating accounts of
> >> corruption in Iraq in the London Review of Books,
> that, as you read, the
> >> four mega-bases always imagined as our permanent
> jumping-off spots in 
> >> what
> >> Bush administration officials once liked to call
> "the arc of instability"
> >> were still undergoing improvement.
> >>
> >>            Without taking the fate of those
> monstrous,
> >> always-meant-to-be-permanent bases into
> account--and they are, after all,
> >> just about the only uniformly successfully
> construction projects in that
> >> country--no American plans for Iraq, whatever
> label they go by, will make
> >> much sense. And yet months go by without any
> reporting on them appearing.
> >> In fact, these last months have gone by with only
> a single peep (that 
> >> I've
> >> found) from any mainstream publication on the
> subject.
> >>
> >>            The sole bit of base news I've noticed
> anywhere made an 
> >> obscure
> >> mid-October appearance in a Turkish paper, which
> reported that the U.S.
> >> was now building a "military airport" in
> Kurdistan. A few days later, a 
> >> UPI
> >> report picked up by the Washington Times had
> this: "Following hints U.S.
> >> troops may remain in Iraq for years, the United
> States is reportedly
> >> building a massive military base at Arbil, in
> Kurdish northern Iraq."
> >>
> >>            Kurdistan has always been a logical
> fallback position for U.S.
> >> forces "withdrawing" from a failed Iraq. But so
> far nothing more
> >> substantial has been written on the subject.
> >>
> >>            There is, however, another symbol of
> American "permanency" in
> >> Iraq that has gotten just slightly more attention
> in the U.S. press in
> >> recent months--the new U.S. embassy now going up
> inside Baghdad's
> >> well-fortified Green Zone and nicknamed by
> Baghdadis (in a sly reference
> >> to Saddam Hussein's enormous, self-important
> edifices) "George W's 
> >> Palace."
> >> It's almost the size of Vatican City, will have
> its own apartment
> >> buildings (six of them) for its bulked-up "staff"
> of literally thousands 
> >> and its own
> >> electricity, well-water, and waste-treatment
> facilities to guarantee "100
> >> percent independence from city utilities," not to
> speak of a "swimming
> >> pool, gym, commissary, food court and American
> Club, all housed in a 
> >> recreation
> >> building" and it's own anti-missile system. Ed
> Harriman tells us that 
> >> it's
> >> a billion dollar-plus project--and unlike just
> about every other
> >> construction project in the country, it's going
> up efficiently and on 
> >> schedule. It will
> >> be the most imperial embassy on the planet, not
> exactly the perfect 
> >> signal
> >> of a sovereign Iraqi future.
> >>
> >>            Again, few have had much to say about
> the embassy project 
> >> here,
> >> a rare exception being an August Dallas Morning
> News editorial, "Fortress
> >> America: New Embassy Sends Wrong Message to
> Iraqis," that denounced the
> >> project: "America certainly needs a decent,
> well-defended embassy in
> >> Baghdad. But not as much as ordinary Iraqis need
> electricity and water.
> >> That our government doesn't seem to understand
> that reality could explain 
> >> a lot
> >> about why the U.S. mission is in such trouble."
> >>
> >>            Of course, as we learned in Vietnam,
> even the most permanent
> >> facilities can turn out to be impermanent indeed
> and even the best
> >> defended imperial embassy can, in the end, prove
> little more than a handy 
> >> spot for
> >> planning an evacuation. But if the Iraq Study
> Group doesn't directly
> >> confront these facts-on-the-ground (as it surely
> won't), whatever
> >> acceptable compromises it may forge in Washington
> between an embedded 
> >> administration
> >> and a new Congress, things will only go from
> truly bad to distinctly 
> >> worse
> >> in Iraq.
> 
> 
> 
> 



 
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