June 18, 2008, 7:59 am
New York Times
What exactly is a Permanent Base?
By Kyle Crichton
In the debate over the future American military role in Iraq, the Bush administration has held firm on one point in particular: there will be no permanent American bases in Iraq. Just last week, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker denied a report in The Independent of London to the effect that the United States was building 50 “permanent” bases.
But what constitutes a permanent base? Almost anything, it turns out.
“The whole debate about permanent bases is meaningless,” said John Pike, the director of Global Security, a Web site that collects information on defense and intelligence issues. “There is no such thing as a permanent base.”
For example, Mr. Pike said, the United States military is currently vacating “temporary” facilities in the center of Seoul, South Korea, for more secure and modern barracks to the south of the city. Those temporary facilities, built after the Korean War, are more than 50 years old and crumbling.
On the other extreme, he said, Fort Monroe, Va., where ground was broken in 1819, was shuttered in the 2005 round of base closings.
So even though we may never have permanent bases in Iraq, we could very well have some venerable temporary facilities there before we finally depart.
How many? Recent reports, like that in the Independent and other media outlets put the number as high as 58. But how many bases do we have now?
The United States military does not say, and it is a hard number to pin down because it depends on what you call a base. In a 2005 report, Global Security identified 275 bases in Iraq. With the surge, which entailed the establishment of numerous, fortified outposts around the country that could be considered bases, that number is undoubtedly much higher now.
But some of the major military bases in Iraq, like the Baghdad airport, Balad and Asad, consist of as many as a dozen adjoining bases, each with its own entrance and administration, Mr. Pike says. So do you count them as, say, 12 bases or just one?
Right now, they are counted as 12. But in the continental United States, the military officially considers them as only one, Mr. Pike says. So just a small accounting change could, in theory, easily reduce 250 or more bases to 58 or less.
In any event, it is not clear why the United States would need more than a handful of big bases in the future, and most if not all of those are already there and looking quite permanent, from the KFC and Burger King outlets, to the car dealerships, to the 6,000- person mess halls.
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Shi'a and Sunni opponents of the US, want to count every bloody outhouse as a base. Political reasons. having nothing to do with reality nor practical understandings - just driven by political and religious hatred. They would count aircraft as bases if it irritated the public in the US and Iraq.
As for having US personnel in these tens of thousands of bases - what utter nonsense, but to a populace driven by conspiracy theories, it makes sense. We are there to steal their oil and subvert their will. Puhleze. Do you understand what the American left with their drivel has done to truth - they have so perverted truth as to play into the agenda and dialogue in the respective countries where it is used as reinforcement for their theories and conspiracies. The left in the West simply laughs at the silly theories, but the danger is far greater than deserving a snicker at the expense of some ludicrous theory. It is believed and absorbed into their world view about the US and the West. It undermines and destroys our credibility and support.
It has nothing to do with supporting or not our being in Iraq - it has everything to do with supporting or not the America we live in and believe in. It undermines us far more than any lie Clinton told or sex act in the White House. It is more dangerous than any attack on the US. It is fine to believe, but not reproduce ad nausea through the media out into public discourse. It is absurd and those who perpetrate such ignorance are in part responsible for the consequences.
We, just thinking aloud, may want 4 maybe 5 bases and a few camps in between those bases. Each base would have between 3,500 and 5,000 for a total of 20,000 - 25,000 troops that would be stationed in Iraq for the long-term. Do you want to publicize this before they get the details through their leaks, and risk the lives of Americans in Iraq. I don't think reasonable minded, patriotic Americans would ever risk such a threat to other Americans. That is about all I think we would ultimately want to keep in Iraq, LONG TERM. For the next year, the number would be much higher, but as al qaida is defeated and we find it to be less threatening, we will reduce the number of troops.
Why all the hullabaloo over troop numbers and bases? Think politics. Opponents are driven (in the US) exclusively by politics, not American interests. In Iraq, they are driven by ignorance and religious purpose.
fuck ups
assholes
fools
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