Out of Iraq, Into the Gulf
◙ Republic of Australia☻☺☻
Out of Iraq, Into the Gulf
by Nick Turse and Tom Engelhardt,
November 23, 2009
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2009/11/22/out-of-iraq-into-the-gulf/
So here’s the mystery. You have a country that only recently had
upward of 300 military bases, monster to micro, in a single war-torn
land, Iraq. It probably now has something like 300 bases combined in
Iraq and Afghanistan (where base-building is on the rise). Outside of
those war zones, it has perhaps 800 more “facilities” (as they’re
called) around the globe and thousands more at home. Some of them are
absolutely enormous, the equivalent of small American towns with all
the amenities of home.
Without a doubt, this represents an accomplishment of some sort.
Historically speaking, it’s news of the first order. No other great
power, from the Han Chinese and the Romans to the British Empire, has
ever built so many military outposts in such far-flung places.
So is this empire of bases a matter of pride at home? Hardly. It’s
rarely thought about. It’s not a matter for general discussion or
mainstream debate, nor is it news, except on the rarest of occasions
(usually when the government threatens to shut down domestic bases and
job losses loom). Changes in Pentagon global basing policy are for
Washington policy wonks, not ordinary Americans, and certainly not
American reporters. From the mainstream media, you get at best a kind
of shrug on the subject. Yes, from time to time, you can find a decent
piece on an American military base abroad, but normally they are
places where American TV reporters can safely set up their cameras and
discuss other matters entirely. News about U.S. military bases being
built or upgraded in distant lands is usually left to Web sites like
TomDispatch to keep track of.
When it comes to the Middle East, the building of Israeli settlements
in East Jerusalem or the West Bank, or of secret nuclear facilities in
Iran are major news subjects, but the building up of U.S. base
infrastructure in the region? Not so much. If, for the first time in
its history, the U.S. Navy sets up a permanent strike force based in
Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, Expeditionary Strike Group 5, remember to
check the National, the English-language paper in the United Arab
Emirates, for it, not your local rag or the Washington Post, New York
Times, or Wall Street Journal. Mind you, we’re talking about the U.S.
Navy in the Persian Gulf, the unsettled oil and natural gas heartland
of the planet, yet not a peep.
A basic principle taught to any young reporter is: “follow the money.”
A similar principle should apply to U.S. foreign policy reporting:
follow the bases. As striking facts-on-the-ground, such bases tell us
much about bedrock U.S. policy, whatever the policy debates in
Washington. If the mainstream media ignores such bases, TomDispatch
has long made it a policy of keeping an eye on them. Recently, Nick
Turse, this site’s associate editor and the award-winning author of
The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, reported on
a story only modestly and partially covered here: the way the Pentagon
has been pouring money into building up its base infrastructure in
Afghanistan.
Now, he turns to the Persian Gulf region where the news is focused on
a future U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. It turns out, however, that we’re
withdrawing into something – that, in fact, there’s been a massive, if
hardly noticed, Pentagon buildup in this region, too. You’d think it
might be news. Now, at TomDispatch, thanks to Turse, it is. Tom
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The Pentagon Garrisons the Gulf
As Washington talks Iraq withdrawal, the Pentagon builds up bases in
the region
by Nick Turse
Despite recent large-scale insurgent suicide bombings that have killed
scores of civilians and the fact that well over 100,000 U.S. troops
are still deployed in that country, coverage of the U.S. war in Iraq
has been largely replaced in the mainstream press by the (previously)
“forgotten war” in Afghanistan. A major reason for this is the plan,
developed at the end of the Bush years and confirmed by President
Obama, to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq to 50,000 by August 2010 and
withdraw most of the remaining forces by December 2011.
Getting out of Iraq, however, doesn’t mean getting out of the Middle
East. For one thing, it’s likely that a sizable contingent of U.S.
forces will remain garrisoned on several large and remotely situated
U.S. bases in Iraq well past December 2011. Still others will be
stationed close by – on bases throughout the region where, with little
media attention since the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003,
construction to harden, expand, and upgrade U.S. and allied facilities
has gone on to this day.
Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee early this year,
Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM),
stated: “The Arabian Peninsula commands significant U.S. attention and
focus because of its importance to our interests and the potential for
insecurity.” He continued:
“[T]he countries of the Arabian Peninsula are key partners … CENTCOM
ground, air, maritime, and special operations forces participate in
numerous operations and training events, bilateral and multilateral,
with our partners from the Peninsula. We help develop indigenous
capabilities for counter terrorism; border, maritime, and critical
infrastructure security; and deterring Iranian aggression. As a part
of all this, our FMS [foreign military sales] and FMF [foreign
military financing] programs are helping to improve the capabilities
and interoperability of our partners’ forces. We are also working
toward an integrated air and missile defense network for the Gulf. All
of these cooperative efforts are facilitated by the critical base and
port facilities that Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE [United Arab
Emirates], and others provide for U.S. forces.”
In fact, since 2001 the Pentagon has been pouring significant sums of
money into the “critical base and port facilities” mentioned by the
general – both U.S. sites and those of its key regional partners.
These are often ignored facts on the ground, which signal just how
enduring the U.S. military presence in the region is likely to be, no
matter what happens in Iraq. Press coverage of this long-term
infrastructural buildup has been remarkably minimal, given the
implications for future conflicts in the oil heartlands of the planet.
After all, Washington is sending tremendous amounts of military
materiel into autocratic Middle Eastern nations and building-up bases
in countries whose governments, due to domestic public opinion, often
prefer that no publicity be given to the growing American military
“footprint.”
Given that the current conflict with al-Qaeda stemmed, in no small
part, from the U.S. military presence in the region, the issue is
obviously of importance. Nonetheless, coverage has been so poor that
much about U.S. military efforts there remains unknown. A review of
U.S. government documents, financial data, and other open-source
material by TomDispatch, however, reveals that an American military
building boom yet to be seriously scrutinized, analyzed, or assessed
is underway in the Middle East.
Consider, then, what we can at present know now about this Pentagon
buildup, country by country from Qatar to Jordan, and while you’re
reading, think about what we don’t know – and why Washington has
chosen this path.
Qatar: The Pentagon’s Persian Gulf Pentagon
In 1996, although it had no air force of its own, the Persian Gulf
nation of Qatar built al- Udeid Air Base at a cost of more than $1
billion. The goal: attracting the U.S. military. In September 2001,
U.S. aircraft began to operate out of the facility. By 2002, tanks,
armored vehicles, dozens of warehouses, communications and computing
equipment, and thousands of troops were based at and around al-Udeid.
In 2005, the Qatari government spent almost $400 million to build a
cutting-edge regional air operations center.
Today, Qatar is all but indispensable to the U.S. military. Just
recently, for example, Central Command redeployed 750 personnel from
its Tampa, Fla., headquarters to its new forward headquarters at al-
Udeid to test its “staff’s ability to seamlessly transition command
and control of operations in the event of a crisis in the CENTCOM area
of responsibility or a natural disaster in Florida.”
Qatar has not, however, picked up the whole tab for the expanding U.S.
military infrastructure in the country. The Pentagon has also been
investing large amounts of money in upgrading facilities there for the
last decade. From 2001-2009, the U.S. Army, for example, awarded $209
million in contracts for construction in the energy-rich emirate. In
August, Rizzani de Eccher, an Italian engineering and construction
giant, signed a $44 million deal with the Pentagon to replace an
unspecified facility at al-Udeid. In September, the Department of
Defense (DoD) awarded Florida-based IAP Worldwide Services a $6
million contract for “construction of a pre-engineered warehouse
building … warehouse bay and related site work and utilities” at the
base.
Later in the month, American International Contractors, a global
construction firm that specializes in “U.S.-funded Middle East and
African infrastructure projects,” inked a deal for nearly $10 million
to build a Special Operations Forces Training Range, complete with “a
two-story shooting house, an indoor range, breach and storage
facilities[,] a test-fire bunker, and bunker road” in Qatar. Just days
after that, the Pentagon awarded a $52 million contract to
Cosmopolitan-EMTA JV to upgrade the capacity of al-Udeid’s airfield by
building additional aircraft parking ramps and fuel storage
facilities.
Bahrain’s Bases and Kuwait’s Subways
In nearby Bahrain – a tiny kingdom of 750,000 people – the U.S.
stations up to 3,000 personnel, in addition to regular visits by the
crews of Navy ships that spend time there. Between 2001-2009, the Navy
awarded $203 million in construction contracts for military projects
in the country. One big winner over that span has been the engineering
and construction firm Contrack International. It received more than
$50 million in U.S. government funds for such projects as building two
“multi-story facilities for the U.S. Navy” complete with state-of-the-
art communication interfaces and exterior landscaping.
In September 2009, the company was awarded a new $27 million deal “for
the design/bid/build construction of the waterfront development
program, US Naval Support Activity, Bahrain.” This facility will join
the Navy’s undisputed crown jewel in Bahrain – a 188,000 square-foot
mega-facility known as “the Freedom Souq” that houses a PX or Navy
Exchange (NEX). The NEX, in turn, offers “an ice cream shop, bicycle
shop, cell phone shop, tailor shop, barber and beauty shops, self-
serve laundry, dry-cleaning service, rug Souq, nutrition shop, video
rental, and a 24/7 mini-mart,” while selling everything from cosmetics
and cameras to beer and wine.
Work is also going on in nearby Oman where, in the 1930s, the British
Royal Air Force utilized an airfield on Masirah Island for its
ventures in the Middle East. Today, the U.S. Air Force and members of
other service branches do much the same, operating out of the island’s
Camp Justice. From 2001-2009, the Army and Air Force each spent about
$13 million on construction projects in the sultanate. Contractor
Cosmopolitan-EMTA JV is now set to begin work there, too, after
recently signing a $5 million contract with the Pentagon for an
“Expeditionary Tent Beddown” (presumably an area meant to accommodate
a potential future influx of forces). Meanwhile, in the neighboring
United Arab Emirates, the U.S. Army alone spent $46 million between
2001-2009 on construction projects.
In 1991, the U.S. military helped to push Saddam Hussein’s army out of
Kuwait. After that, however, the country’s leader, Sheikh Jaber al-
Ahmed al-Sabah, refused to return home “until crystal chandeliers and
gold-plated bathroom fixtures could be reinstalled in Kuwait City’s
Bayan Palace.” Today, about 30 miles south of the plush palace sits
another pricey complex. Camp Arifjan grew exponentially as the Iraq
War ramped up, gaining notoriety along the way as the epicenter of a
massive graft and corruption scandal. Today, the base houses about
15,000 U.S. troops and features such fast-food favorites as Pizza Hut,
Hardees, Subway, and Burger King.
Another facility in Kuwait that has become a major stopover point on
the road to and from Baghdad is Camp Buehring. Located north of Kuwait
City, near the town of Udairi, the installation is chock-a-block full
of amenities, including three PXs; telephone centers; two Internet
cafés; Morale, Welfare, and Recreation centers; a movie theater;
chapel; gym; volleyball court; basketball court; concert stage; gift
shop; barber shop; jewelry store; and a number of popular eateries,
including Burger King, Subway, Baskin Robbins, and Starbucks.
Writing about the base recently, Captain Charles Barrett of the 3rd
Infantry Division’s 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team remarked, “There’s a
USO with computers and a café. You know the café is good because it
has that little mark over the letter ‘e.’ Soldiers are gaming on Xbox,
PlayStation, and Wii. There are phone banks and board games and a
place where parents can read to their kids and have the DVD mailed
home.”
The price tag for living the big-box-base lifestyle in Kuwait has,
however, been steep. From 2003 to 2009, the U.S. Army spent in excess
of $502 million on contracts for construction projects in the small,
oil-rich nation, while the Air Force added almost $55 million and the
Navy another $7 million. Total military spending there has been more
massive still. Over the same span, according to U.S. government data,
the Pentagon has spent nearly $20 billion in Kuwait, buying huge
quantities of Kuwaiti oil and purchasing logistical support from
various contractors for its facilities there (and elsewhere), among
other expenditures.
In 2006, for example, the international construction firm Archirodon
was awarded $10 million to upgrade airfield lighting at al-Salem and
al-Jaber, two Kuwaiti air bases used by American forces. Recently,
there has also been a major scaling up of work at Camp Arifjan. In
September, for example, the Pentagon awarded CH2M Hill Contractors a
nearly $26 million deal to build a new communications facility on the
base. Just days later, defense contractor ITT received an almost $87
million contract for maintenance and support services there.
Saudi Base Building and Jordan’s U.S. Army Training Complex
According to a recent Congressional Research Service report, “From
1950 through 2006, Saudi Arabia purchased and received from the United
States weapons, military equipment, and related services through
foreign military sales (FMS) worth over $62.7 billion and foreign
military construction services (FMCS) worth over $17.1 billion.”
Between 1946 and 2007, the Saudis also benefited from almost $295
million in foreign assistance funding from the U.S. military.
From the lead-up to the First Gulf War in 1990 through the 2003
invasion of Iraq, the U.S. military stationed thousands of troops in
Saudi Arabia. The American presence in the kingdom – the location of
some of the holiest sites in Islam – was a major factor in touching
off al-Qaeda’s current war with the United States. In 2003, in
response to fundamentalist pressure on the Saudi government, the U.S.
military announced it was pulling all but a small number of trainers
out of the country. Yet while many U.S. troops have left, Pentagon
contracts haven’t – a significant portion of them for construction
projects for the Saudi Arabian military, which the U.S. trains and
advises from sites like Eskan Village, a compound 20 kilometers south
of Riyadh, where 800 U.S. personnel (500 of them advisers) are based.
Between 2003-2009, the U.S. Army awarded $559 million in contracts for
Saudi construction projects. In 2009, for example, it gave a $160
million deal to construction firm Saudi Oger Limited for the
construction of facilities for a Saudi mechanized brigade based at al-
Hasa, a $127 million contract to Saudi Lebanese Modern Construction
Co. to erect structures for the Prince Turki Bin Abdul Aziz Battalion,
and an $82 million agreement to top Saudi construction firm al-Latifia
Trading and Contracting Company to build ammunition storage bunkers,
possibly at the Saudi Arabian National Guard’s Khashm al-An Training
Area.
Additionally, military weaponry has continued to flow into Saudi
Arabia by way of the Pentagon and so, too, have contracts to provide
support services for that materiel. For example, earlier this year,
under a U.S. Air Force contract extension, Cubic Corporation was
awarded a $9.5 million deal “to continue to operate and maintain the
air combat training system used to support F-15 fighter pilot training
for the Royal Saudi Air Force.”
Like the Saudis, Jordan’s leader, King Abdullah II, has long had a
complex relationship with the U.S. shaped by domestic concerns over
U.S. military action in the region and support for Israel. As with
Saudi Arabia, none of that has stopped the U.S. military from forging
ever closer ties with the kingdom.
Recently, after testing and evaluating various training systems at
multiple U.S. Army bases, the Jordanian Armed Forces selected Cubic’s
combat training center system and under the auspices of the U.S. Army,
the company was “awarded an $18 million contract to supply mobile
combat training center instrumentation and training services to the
Kingdom of Jordan.”
The Pentagon has also invested in Jordanian military infrastructure.
Between 2001-2009, the Army awarded $86 million in contracts for
Jordanian construction projects. One major beneficiary was again
Archirodon which, between 2006-2008, worked on the construction of the
King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC) – a state-
of-the-art military and counter-terrorism training facility owned and
operated by the Jordanian government but built, in part, under a $70
million U.S. Army contract. In 2009, Archirodon was awarded two
additional contracts for $729,000 and $400,000, by the Air Force, for
unspecified work in Jordan.
When that 1,235-acre $200 million Jordanian training center was
unveiled earlier this year, King Abdullah II himself gave the
inaugural address, speaking “of his vision for KASOTC as a world-class
special forces training center.” Not surprisingly, Gen. Petraeus was
also on hand to give a speech in which he lauded Jordan as “a key
partner … [which] has placed itself at the forefront of police and
military training for regional security forces.”
Garrisoning the Gulf
Even as it lurches toward a quasi-withdrawal from Iraq, the U.S.
military has been hunkering down and hardening its presence elsewhere
in the Middle East with little fanfare or press coverage. There has
been almost no discussion in this country of a host of possible
repercussions that might come from this, ranging from local opposition
to the U.S. military’s presence to the arming of undemocratic and
repressive regimes in the region. With the sole exception of Iran, the
U.S. military has fully garrisoned the nations of the Persian Gulf
with air bases, naval bases, desert posts, training centers, and a
whole host of other facilities, while also building up the military
capacity of nearby Jordan.
The CIA efforts to topple Iran’s government in the 1950s, Washington’s
support for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s, the Pentagon’s troop
presence in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s – all were considered canny
geopolitical moves in their time; all had unforeseen and devastating
consequences. The money the Pentagon has recently been pouring into
the nations of the Persian Gulf to bulk up base infrastructure has
only tied the U.S. ever more tightly to the region’s autocratic, often
unpopular regimes, while further arming and militarizing an area
traditionally considered unstable. The Pentagon’s Persian Gulf base
buildup has already cost Americans billions in tax dollars. What the
costs in “blowback” will be remains the unknown part of the equation.
Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and the winner
of a 2009 Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction as well as a
James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. His work has
appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, In These Times, and
regularly at TomDispatch. Turse is currently a fellow at New York
University’s Center for the United States and the Cold War. A
paperback edition of his book The Complex: How the Military Invades
Our Everyday Lives (Metropolitan Books) was published earlier this
year. His Web site is NickTurse.com.
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HOOROO
UNCLE WALLY