Basic questions about bases (in Iraq)

[donsu]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH06Ak02.html


Hardly a day has gone by in the past few weeks without a new press report detailing the US military's plans to reduce its footprint in Iraq next year. First it was a leaked British memo saying that Britain would hand over southern Iraq to the Iraqis and the US would cut its troops in half. Then it was General George W Casey, the senior commander in Iraq, promising a "fairly substantial" US withdrawal by the summer of 2006. Finally, there was the announcement of a joint Iraqi-US committee to determine the "conditions" for a US exit

-snip-

Joost Hiltermann, of the International Crisis Group (ICG), told Asia Times Online it would be strange if America didn't intend to stay in Iraq. "One of the reasons they invaded, as far as I can tell, is because they needed to shift their military operation from Saudi Arabia," he said, "and Iraq was probably the easiest one in terms of a big country to support their presence in the Gulf." The idea that the US wanted to swap Iraq for Saudi Arabia was acknowledged by then-deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz in an interview with Vanity Fair in 2003.

Persistent reports that the US is constructing permanent bases in Iraq lend credence to the view that the Bush administration plans to stay. The Chicago Tribune reported in March 2004 that the US was building 14 "enduring" bases in Iraq, and the Washington Post reported in May that US forces would eventually be consolidated into four large, permanent air bases.

Erik Leaver, of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and a long-time proponent of a promise to close US military bases, told Asia Times Online that the kind of construction taking place belies statements from President George W Bush that the US only intends to stay "as long as necessary and not one day more", as Bush said on April 13, 2004. Not only are ammunition dumps and concrete runways and roads being built, he said, but so is long-term housing for US troops.
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long article
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the article also told how you could see in the Defense Bill and supplementals, concrete masonry barracks are being built.


america will not be leaving Iraq until the worlds oil and gas runs out. sorry Iraqis, you've been doubly screwed.

[jean]

1. in light of the fact that 'adaptable' insurgents attack + kill us at will,

how does the military plan on defending this network of enduring bases and the troops assigned to them?

Let me guess - from the air.

[donsu]

2. yes, give them enough time and there won't be any Iraqis left alive

to bother them.