A sense of permanence
Enduring Freedom by numbers. I read an Alternet article; Sam
Graham Nelson, a phone interview with former senator Gary Hart
AlterNet: War on Iraq: Operation: Enduring Presence. A portion:
"If the topic of permanent bases in Iraq seems unfamiliar, it's
because, as Hart noted, there's been barely a whisper about them in the
mainstream media. While the deteriorating situation in Iraq is making
headlines daily, it's been two months since any reports on the presence
or construction of bases have emerged from major press outlets."
While every so often this makes it into to the press. It's a topic
generally no one wants discussed. The Pentagon isn't keen on opening up
on strategic considerations strung halfway between political and
military, nor it seems is it happy about having all its current
military installations in Iraq be artificially temporary and thinly
protected - to perserve the fiction that we are not planning a long
term occupation of Iraq.
Garrisoning the oil fields is what this war was about. Wolfowitz said
as much in Vanity Fair two years ago. Not only are the oilfields of
Iraq second only to the Saudi fields, but the US military presence in
the region, was originally thought by the imperial brain trust of the
Bush administration to be better moved from Saudi Arabia to Iraq. Less
obtrusive, less of a target, less of a management problem.
Looking over this Reuters article on central asia bases
Rumsfeld wants to keep U.S. bases in Central Asia we get an
indication that the public line is no permanent presence: ""We've
said all along we have no intention of permanent U.S. bases in the
region," said a senior U.S. defense official traveling with Rumsfeld,
declining to say when operations in Afghanistan would no longer require
the bases."
The original plan for Iraq would have had all this proceed smoothly, the war was envisioned as more of an assisted coup than a
protracted war. I always think of that column Safire wrote a few
years ago when he was trying to prove there was no insurgency. He
believed if the State Dept. had only signed off on the original
division+ sized liberation army Ahmed Chalabi was supposed to have
descended into Iraq with - this rabble would have been dealt with
somehow, before it began.
Now after expressing indignation and incredulity at the idea of
setting some sort of timetable or set benchmarks for winding down our
role in this this war it turns out they intend just that
KR Washington Bureau | 07/27/2005 | Top U.S. general says troop withdrawal from Iraq possible in 2006. Chalabi was
eventually flown in on a plane provided by the asst Secretary of
Defenses office, initialy into one of Iraq's former strategic airbases
in the western desert. These bases individually, certainly
collectively, have the potential to replace whatever we have been
obliged to give up in Saudi Arabia. They were laid out near pumping
stations of the major oil pipeline from the Iraqi oil fields into
Jordan. They are called H-1 H-2, and H-3.
H-3 has a cluster of airfields, H-3 Northwest for
instance is about ten
NM away to the NW. There are other pipelines; T and K, and other
pumping stations Some in the Northern Kurdish area's, the principle
remains the same. I like Google maps. I had the idea these bases would
be easy to find
I just asked Google where Iraq was and poked about til I found them. It
wasn't quite as simple as that. It took me a couple of hours to get the
hang of it. Getting oriented is easy with the scale slider set about
halfway, but you're unlikely to pick up manmade environmental items
unless
you're several steps smaller in scale. Don't be fooled by being able to
see roads, linear objects like roads, will be visible before other
manmade objects.
The plan
Drawing Down Iraq - Newsweek: International Editions - MSNBC.com seems to be to draw down the American and British Forces to
make the Iraqi's pick up the insurgent fight whether they want to or
not. The reduction would bring our forces down to around the level of
two divsions which I would expect to withdraw out of Iraq's urban
areas to hardened facilitiess capable of being expanded to much
larger operating objectives quickly. These will be US divisions in
rotation there for twenty years or more. If not at H one
two and three then something very similar.
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