slept2long

From the NY Times

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" The United States 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, senior Bush administration officials say.

American military officials, in interviews this week, spoke of maintaining perhaps four bases in Iraq that could be used in the future: one at the international airport just outside Baghdad; another at Tallil, near Nasiriya in the south; the third at an isolated airstrip called H-1 in the western desert, along the old oil pipeline that runs to Jordan; and the last at the Bashur air field in the Kurdish north."

" In a particularly important development, officials said the United States was likely to reduce American forces in Saudi Arabia, as well."

Maybe Osama will get his panties out of a wad now.

"The attacks of Sept. 11 changed more than just the terrorism picture," said one senior administration official. "On Sept. 11, we woke up and found ourselves in Central Asia. We found ourselves in Eastern Europe as never before, as the gateway to Central Asia and the Middle East."

PNAC member perhaps?

" In Afghanistan and in Iraq, the American military will do all it can to minimize the size of its forces, and there will probably never be an announcement of permanent stationing of troops.

Permanent access is all that is required, not permanent basing, officials say."

Huh? If you don't have the right to say no how are you free?

" Among the pressures to be exerted against Syria will be a campaign to focus the world's attention on a new administration message. "Syria occupies Lebanon," one senior administration official said. "This is the repression of one Arab state by another. Plus there are terror training camps in the Bekaa Valley."

I'm speechless.

Cap'n Jack

It would seem that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda had miscalculated the effect that their attacks would have, instead of removing US influence in the middle east, its increased it.

Hubble head

I hope this doesn't surprise many. We are still in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Germany, Japan (Okinawa Is.) and Korea. Did I leave any out? Vietnam was a lost war so don''t ask why we aren't there. Cuba is different.

The missions of those bases started out quite differently than what they are today. They have also grown much much larger over time.

slept2long

Where do they calculate the effect as being "getting Amurkins to leave the ME"? Just wondering.

theyeti

I can't find the article right now, but Rummy has flat-out denied that the US has plans for long-term bases. That kind of surprises me actually. I figured that such bases were one of the reasons for attacking them in the first place. (One of the real reasons, not the fake ones.)

theyeti

Hubble head

I saw it on CNN - but in Rummy speak it sounded like "If the people of Iraq stop resisting us and the country is stable and free from violence we will not have a long term base here. (A few thousand marines and intel types will always be here no matter what but that's not a "base" as I define it so I'm not lying)".

They will find excuse after excuse to keep our forces inside Iraq, no matter how ugly it gets. I mean, if we are still in Germany, Japan, Philappines, and Korea what else are Iraqis to expect?

Nataraja

Yup. He's denied it! Careful if you're in DC nowadays; there's so much backpedalling going on up there that you might get run over.

James Still

And if the democratically elected government decides that U.S. bases are not welcome?

Sauron

Then I'm sure we'll suddenly discover that the democratically elected government is harboring weapons of mass destruction.

Or terrorists.

Or french fries.

Whatever it takes.

Cap'n Jack

They claimed/vowed they would destroy the US, that didn't quite pan out.