Super-bases in Iraq

[Dover]

Jon Carroll
SF Gate

Friday, February 24, 2006

So many things are left intentionally vague. The Bush administration does
not place much importance on revealing its plans to the public, or in
modifying those plans if people object to them. It is possible that the two
are linked -- the less the people know about the plans, the less they can
object to them. I could point out that many of these plans are costly, and
the burden of that cost is being borne by the American people, who therefore
have a right to know at some level of granularity (to use the current vogue
word) how that money is spent -- but I assume that argument was rejected
quite some time ago. Probably the Justice Department wrote a memo about it
and why it's not really true and thus easy to ignore.

One of the vague things: What are our plans in Iraq? Are we getting out
soon, or not so soon, or not at all? Under what conditions would this
withdrawal happen? What events or series of events are we waiting for?
Various administration officials have pledged a swift return of the troops.
Indeed, they began promising that in 2003, and look, no drawdown.

So the thing to do would be to look at the administration's actions rather
than listen to its words. Maybe by examining the nature of the
infrastructure the military is building, we might get a hint of its plans.

That is what journalist Tom Engelhardt did in his blog TomDispatch.com. He
collected the strikingly few media reports on the so-called "super-bases"
that the United States is building in Iraq. Their size and cost indicates
more clearly than anything what our real plans are: We're there to stay,
friends, whatever election-year rhetoric you may be hearing.

Here's an excerpt from Engelhardt's posting: "For the first time, we have
actual descriptions of a couple of the 'super-bases' built in Iraq in the
last two and a half years and, despite being written by reporters under
Pentagon information restrictions, they are sobering. Thomas Ricks of the
Washington Post paid a visit to Balad Air Base, the largest American base in
the country, 68 kilometers north of Baghdad and 'smack in the middle of the
most hostile part of Iraq.' In a piece entitled Biggest Base in Iraq Has
Small-Town Feel, Ricks paints a striking portrait.

"The base is sizable enough to have its own 'neighborhoods' including
'KBR-land' (in honor of the Halliburton subsidiary that has done most of the
base- construction work in Iraq); 'CJSOTF' ('home to a special operations
unit,' the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, surrounded by
'especially high walls' and so secretive that even the base Army public
affairs chief has never been inside); and a junkyard for bombed out Army
Humvees. There is as well a Subway, a Pizza Hut, a Popeye's, 'an ersatz
Starbucks,' a 24-hour Burger King, two post exchanges where TVs, iPods, and
the like can be purchased, four mess halls, a hospital, a strictly enforced
on-base speed limit of 10 MPH, a huge airstrip, 250 aircraft (helicopters
and predator drones included), air-traffic pile-ups of a sort you would see
over Chicago's O'Hare airport, and 'a miniature golf course, which mimics a
battlefield with its baby sandbags, little Jersey barriers, strands of
concertina wire and, down at the end of the course, what appears to be a
tiny detainee cage. ...'

"There are at least four such 'super-bases' in Iraq, none of which have
anything to do with 'withdrawal' from that country. Quite the contrary,
these bases are being constructed as little American islands of eternal
order in an anarchic sea."...cont'd

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/02/24/DDGU9GJ59N1.DTL


____________


Biggest Base in Iraq Has Small-Town Feel
Most Troops at Balad Never Meet Iraqis

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 4, 2006; A14


BALAD, Iraq -- Staff Sgt. Chad Twigg is on a one-year tour of duty in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. But on a recent winter morning, he wasn't digging a foxhole or tracking an enemy sniper or trying to grab some sleep between firefights.

Instead, the Army mechanic was checking out iPod accessories in one of the two post exchanges here at the biggest American base in Iraq. He worries about the lure of the PX, with its walls of shiny electronic devices and racks of new CDs. "I try to stay away from it to save money," Twigg said. But on average, 15 soldiers a day succumb and buy a television, said John Burk, the PX manager.

Balad Air Base is a unique creation, a small American town smack in the middle of the most hostile part of Iraq. While soldiers drive as fast as they can beyond its perimeter to avoid roadside bombs and ambushes, on base they must drive their Humvees at a stately 10 mph, the strictly enforced speed limit.

The 20,000 troops based at Balad, home to the major Air Force operation in Iraq and also the biggest Army logistical support center in the country, live in air-conditioned containers. Plans are being made to wire the metal boxes to bring the troops Internet, cable television and overseas telephone access.

Balad is scheduled to be one of the last four U.S. bases in Iraq and probably will be the very last, officials say. "Balad will be here, I believe, to the very end," said Brig. Gen. Frank Gorenc, the Slovenian-born F-15 pilot who commands the Air Force side of the operation.

Like most towns, Balad has distinct neighborhoods. The southwest part, home to thousands of civilian contractors, is "KBR-land," a reference to the construction company. "CJSOTF," for Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, is home to a special operations unit and is hidden by especially high walls. Visitors aren't welcome there, and the Army public affairs chief on the base said he'd never been inside.

Next door to CJSOTF is the junkyard, one of the places where war comes closest -- it contains dozens of Army Humvees wrecked by bombs or rollovers. The other place where the war intrudes is the busy base hospital, where doctors perform 400 surgeries a month on the wounded.

cont'd

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/03/AR2006020302994_pf.html

[buddysmellgood]

1. This is where we go when we strategically redeploy.

[wakeme2008]

2. How sad

Only "'a miniature golf course"

In time they will build it's bigger brother

:grr:

[cal04]

3. where's the money coming from to build these

bases?
Is that where the 9 billion that's missing is going to?


How much will all this cost? We don't know because nobody will admit it's even happening. Presumably somewhere deep in the Pentagon lies a cost estimate, but I wouldn't even be too sure of that. This is the administration that had no plans for running Iraq after the conquest; it may not really have any plans for the permanent occupation. KBR keeps building Pizza Huts, and who could be against pizza for our boys and girls in uniform?

[BlueEyedSon]

4. from you & me and our kids

[Nikki Stone 1]

5. kick and recommend

:kick:

[Dover]

6. Never had any doubt...

I was never in any doubt about our intentions to stay there ('our' meaning Rep and Dem leadership alike along with the Military Complex and corporate behemoths). But this article points out the precious few pieces of significant news that get through. I feel pretty certain that 'we' are also doing our darnedest to create enough chaos and phoney insurgency to convince the public of the necessity of staying put. Particularly since a big part of the ultimate goal is to take Iran and this position provides extra leverage on its doorstep.
The incident reported in Basra when British soldiers were discovered by the Iraqi police to be firing on THEM while dressed in Arab clothing (disguises) should have been one of those illuminating nuggets of truth about our real intentions as well. I know it embarrassed the British government who worked overtime to put that one to bed. A lot of covert stirring of the pot. Our country and allies have gotten very good at stirring the pot and creating insurgencies where needed. Must perpuate the lies. We regular folks are simply not violent and aggressive enough to be left to our own devices or adequately incentivized to cater to the perpetually groaning stomachs of the power hungry.
The meek shall inherit the Earth. Just not sure what kind of prize that will be when these guys get done with it.

[StClone]

7. Bases so big they created concrete shortages in the world

I wish I had a link. I remember reading at the height of our home building spree (May '05?) that prices were being driven up by demand from the military building huge bases in Iraq. I was tipped off to this by a concrete company worker.

[Dover]

8. Here's a reference to that in a story from Mother Jones in Mar/Apr. 2005

Digging In.

News: If the U.S. government doesn't plan to occupy Iraq for any longer than necessary, why is it spending billions of dollars to build "enduring" bases?

By Joshua Hammer

March/April 2005 Issue



When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters last December that he expected U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for another four years, he was merely confirming what any visitor to the country could have surmised. The omnipresence of the giant defense contractor KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root), the shipments of concrete and other construction materials, and the transformation of decrepit Iraqi military bases into fortified American enclaves—complete with Pizza Huts and DVD stores—are just the most obvious signs that the United States has been digging in for the long haul. It's a far cry from administration assurances after the invasion that the troops could start withdrawing from Iraq as early as the fall of 2003. And it is hardly consistent with a prediction by Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, that the troops would be out of Iraq within months, or with Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi's guess that the U.S. occupation would last two years. Take, for example, Camp Victory North, a sprawling base near Baghdad International Airport, which the U.S. military seized just before the ouster of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. Over the past year, KBR contractors have built a small American city where about 14,000 troops are living, many hunkered down inside sturdy, wooden, air-conditioned bungalows called SEA (for Southeast Asia) huts, replicas of those used by troops in Vietnam. There's a Burger King, a gym, the country's biggest PX—and, of course, a separate compound for KBR workers, who handle both construction and logistical support. Although Camp Victory North remains a work in progress today, when complete, the complex will be twice the size of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo—currently one of the largest overseas posts built since the Vietnam War.

Such a heavy footprint seems counterproductive, given the growing antipathy felt by most Iraqis toward the U.S. military occupation. Yet Camp Victory North appears to be a harbinger of America's future in Iraq. Over the past year, the Pentagon has reportedly been building up to 14 "enduring" bases across the country—long-term encampments that could house as many as 100,000 troops indefinitely. John Pike, a military analyst who runs the research group GlobalSecurity.org, has identified a dozen of these bases, including three large facilities in and around Baghdad: the Green Zone, Camp Victory North, and Camp al-Rasheed, the site of Iraq’s former military airport. Also listed are Camp Cook, just north of Baghdad, a former Republican Guard "military city" that has been converted into a giant U.S. camp; Balad Airbase, north of Baghdad; Camp Anaconda, a 15-square-mile facility near Balad that housed 17,000 soldiers as of May 2004 and was being expanded for an additional 3,000; and Camp Marez, next to Mosul Airport, where, in December, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the base's dining tent, killing 13 U.S. troops and four KBR contractors eating lunch alongside the soldiers...cont'd

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2005/03/enduring_bases_iraq.html

[Marie26]

11. The Halliburton website

is just scary. They've got so many contracts, for so many different things, that it's not even real. Everything from exploding WMDs to building bases is now entrusted to Halliburton. It's like they've created a parallel corporate Defense Dept. to take over in Iraq.

[sofa king]

9. Oops. Double post.

[sofa king]

10. Yeah, China was pulling our chain.

China is the world's largest supplier of concrete. After we invaded Iraq, they conveniently decided to start stockpiling much of the supply for their own mega-dam projects. I have heard, but cannot confirm, that when the United States started trying to put pressure on the Chinese for more concrete, they sassily told the State Department, "What's the problem? You're going to be out of Iraq by the end of the year, anyway... aren't you?"

And while there might be four mega-bases, they're actually building fourteen permanent bases in total. Fourteen is a pretty important number because each one of those bases is capable of holding at least a brigade-sized force and all of its support apparatus. Those bases can also most likely be defended by only a battallion, should the other two battallions of each brigade be called upon to, say, invade Khuzestan and Bushehr Provinces in Iran in November. Just a guess....

Recently, we've gone away from using divisions as the standard unit of measure for fighting strength and instead switched to the smaller brigades. Each brigade combat team weighs in at about 3500 soldiers, or similar in size to a Soviet division in World War II, but with many times the firepower. If you toss in administrative staff, headquarters units, and Air Force support staff, about 7,500 people in total keep one BCT ready to go. How many brigades are there in Iraq right now, you ask? I think the number has remained pretty consistent at 17 for the past two years, with some units scheduled to leave held over around Iraqi election times. Fourteen brigades adds up to slightly more than 100,000 troops, which appears to mesh nicely with the year-end targets suggested by the DoD.

If the neocons are given their way, they'll be there forever.

[Marie26]

12. So when Bush says

"As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down," is he just lying, deluded, or both?

[sofa king]

14. Yes.

Aside from the profitable rape and exploitation of Iraq's natural resources, the occupation of Iraq is primarily intended as a potential springboard for invasion of Syria, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

[newyawker99]

13. Dover

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.


NYer99
DU Moderator