DISPATCHES FROM
AMERICA Nation-building doesn't begin at
home By Nick Turse
A
billion dollars from the federal government: that
kind of money could go a long way toward
revitalizing a country's aging infrastructure. It
could provide housing or better water and sewer
systems. It could enhance a transportation network
or develop an urban waterfront. It could provide
local jobs. It could do any or all of these
things. And, in fact, it did. It just happened to
be in the Middle East, not the United States.
The Pentagon awarded US$667.2 million in
contracts in 2012 and more than $1 billion during
Barack Obama's first term in office for
construction projects in largely autocratic Middle
Eastern nations, according to figures provided to
TomDispatch by the US Army
Corps of Engineers
Middle East District (USACE-MED). More than $178
million in similar funding is already anticipated
for 2013. These contracts represent a mix of
projects, including expanding and upgrading
military bases used by US troops in the region,
building facilities for indigenous security
forces, and launching infrastructure projects
meant to improve the lives of local populations.
The figures are telling, but far from
complete. They do not, for example, cover any of
the billions spent on work at the more than 1,000
US and coalition bases, outposts, and other
facilities in Afghanistan or the thousands more
manned by local forces. They also leave out
construction projects undertaken in the region by
other military services like the US Air Force, as
well as money spent at an unspecified number of
bases in the Middle East that the Corps of
Engineers "has no involvement with", according to
Joan Kibler, chief of the Middle East District's
public affairs office.
How many of these
projects are obscured by a thick veil of secrecy
is unknown, with US Central Command (CENTCOM)
refusing to name or even offer a full count of all
US bases in the region. On the record, CENTCOM
will acknowledge only 10 bases as in its area of
operations outside of Afghanistan, even though
there are more than two dozen, according to a
CENTCOM official who spoke to TomDispatch on the
condition of anonymity. Exactly how many more and
just where all US construction work in the region
is taking place continues to be kept under tight
wraps. Still, Army Corps of Engineers data, other
official documents, and publicly available
contract information offer a baseline indication
of the way the Pentagon is garrisoning the Greater
Middle East and which countries are becoming ever
more integral allies.
Public talk,
secret action In the final days of the
presidential campaign, President Obama repeatedly
assured Americans that it was time to reap a peace
dividend as America's wars wind down.
Nation-building here at home should, he insisted,
be put on the agenda: "What we can now do is free
up some resources, to, for example, put Americans
back to work, especially our veterans, rebuilding
our roads, our bridges."
Setting aside
just how slipshod or even downright disastrous
Washington's last decade of nation-building
projects in Iraq and Afghanistan have been, the
president's proposal to rebuild roads, upgrade
bridges, and retrofit the country's electrical
grid sounds eminently sensible. After all, the
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gives
America's infrastructure a grade of "D". If, in
the era of the $800 billion stimulus package, $1
billion at first sounds paltry, ask the mayors of
Detroit, Belmar, New Jersey, or even New York City
what that money would mean to their
municipalities. America may need $2.2 trillion in
repairs and maintenance according to ASCE, but $1
billion could radically change the fortunes of
many a city.
Instead, that money is
flowing into the oil-rich Middle East. Unknown to
most Americans, thousands of State Department
personnel, military advisors, and hired
contractors remain at several large civilian bases
in Iraq where nation-building projects are
ongoing; hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars
have been flowing into military construction
projects in repressive Persian Gulf states like
Bahrain and Qatar; and the Pentagon is expanding
its construction program in Central Asia. All of
this adds up to a multifaceted project that seems
at odds with the president's rhetoric. (The White
House did not respond to TomDispatch's repeated
requests for comment.)
Increasing the
power of airpower in Qatar The tiny
oil-rich emirate of Qatar has been the preeminent
site of the Pentagon's Middle Eastern building
boom in the Obama years. A significant percentage
of its population is made up of migrant workers
who, according to Human Rights Watch, are
"vulnerable to exploitation and abuse," while
"forced labor and human trafficking remain serious
problems". The country even received a failing
grade ("not free") from the US State
Department-funded human rights organization
Freedom House.
Still, between 2009 and
2012, the US pumped nearly $400 million into
Pentagon projects in the country, including troop
barracks, munitions storage areas, a
communications center, a training range, an
aircraft operations center, an aircraft
maintenance hangar, an aviation maintenance shop,
a warehouse facility, and a vehicle maintenance
shop, according to a list provided by the Corps of
Engineers.
The Obama administration has
continued a build-up in the country that
accelerated after 9/11. In September 2001, US
aircraft began to operate out of Qatar's Al Udeid
Air Base. By 2002, the US had tanks, armored
vehicles, dozens of warehouses, communications and
computing equipment, and thousands of troops at
and around the base. The next year, the US moved
its major regional combat air operations center
out of Saudi Arabia and into Al Udeid. Since then,
it has served as a major command and logistics hub
for US regional operations, including the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to figures
provided to TomDispatch by USACE, at least 10
contracts for construction at Al Udeid, worth
nearly $87 million, are anticipated in 2013. A
review of official US government documents reveals
a host of upcoming projects there, including a
fuels laboratory, a cryogenics facility, a center
for the Air Force's Office of Special
Investigations, an air defense maintenance
facility, more parking space for fuel trucks, new
roadways, and a precision measurement equipment
laboratory where technicians will calibrate the
sophisticated gear used in vehicle and weapons
maintenance.
Waterfront development in
Bahrain Despite a brutal crackdown on
pro-democracy protesters in 2011, which continues
to this day, the oil-rich kingdom of Bahrain (also
"not free" according to Freedom House) is a top US
ally. In fact, over the past year, the Corps of
Engineers awarded contracts for construction in
the country worth more than $232 million, the most
for any nation in any year of the Obama presidency
so far. Since 2009, Bahrain has seen almost $326
million in USACE contract awards.
In 2010,
the US Navy broke ground on a mega-construction
project to develop 70 acres of waterfront at the
port at Mina Salman. Scheduled for completion in
2015, the complex is slated to include new port
facilities, barracks for troops, administrative
buildings, a dining facility, and a recreation
center, among other amenities. Total price tag:
$580 million.
In September, USACE awarded
a $15 million contract for the expansion of a
wastewater treatment plant and the construction of
a climate-controlled warehouse, as well as an
irrigation pump building, among other facilities
at Mina Salman. That same month, the Corps of
Engineers also awarded a $42 million contract for
a multistory "bachelor enlisted quarters" in the
capital, Manama. It will contain at least 241
two-bedroom apartments for Navy personnel, as well
as administrative offices, laundry facilities,
multipurpose rooms, and lounges.
Taking
flight in Oman In February and March of
2011, protests demanding political reform in Oman
led to assaults on and the killing of protesters
by the nation's security forces. Despite marked
restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom
of the press, this sultanate (also ranked "not
free" by Freedom House) has been a favorite site
of military expansion in the Obama years. Between
2009 and 2012, the Corps of Engineers awarded $144
million in contracts for work there, more than
half this year.
During the 1930s, the
British Royal Air Force operated an airfield on
Oman's Masirah Island. Today, the US uses Masirah
and USACE is carrying out construction there as
well as at the country's Thumrait and Al Musannah
Air Bases.
The un-withdrawal from
Iraq The Corps's contract data do not
include figures for construction in Iraq prior to
August 2011. In the 15 months since, according to
information provided by USACE, it has awarded $113
million in contracts for State Department
nation-building-style projects like a wastewater
treatment plant in the city of Fallujah and a
courthouse in Rusafa.
The Iraqi government
is paying USACE to carry out these projects in
order to increase its defense capabilities,
according to the Middle East District's Joan
Kibler. These include a counter-terrorism center,
consisting of a headquarters facility, barracks, a
warehouse, and a power plant in eastern Baghdad; a
military training complex at Al Harthiya; a
military security school in Taji; and
administrative, security, and dining facilities at
Hawk and Tikrit Air Bases.
At the height
of the American occupation of Iraq, the United
States had 505 bases there, ranging from small
outposts to mega-sized air bases. Of them, some
have been stripped clean by Iraqis, others became
ghost towns, and one - Camp Bucca - a hotel. What
remains open today are State Department
facilities, most notably the US Embassy in
Baghdad. Earlier this year, the Washington Post
reported that the Department of State was planning
to spend up to $115 million to upgrade the massive
embassy compound, which it characterized as
already the "biggest and most expensive in the
world".
State Department documents issued
last month and examined by TomDispatch offer a
snapshot of the civilian "bases" currently being
maintained in Iraq. The Baghdad embassy site in
the "international zone" consists of two
compounds, Camp Condor and the Chancery Compound,
as well as the embassy heliport. With two dining
halls, two gyms, two firehouses, a large post
office, a PX, and contractor housing, the site
presently hosts about 3,600 personnel.
Another 1,250 persons are currently
deployed to the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center
near Baghdad International Airport. This location
boasts a hospital, large dining hall, fire
station, post office, contractor housing, and a
medical waste incineration facility. In Basrah, in
the south of the country, the US maintains two
sites: Consulate General Basrah and Basrah Air
Ops. The dual facility boasts an airfield, a
hospital, a fully equipped recreation center with
a gym and a pastry shop, a large laundry facility,
a sizeable dining hall, a warehouse and other
storage areas, and contractor housing. There is
even shuttle bus service. About 1,000 people are
located at the site.
Close to 1,000 more
personnel are also stationed at the Erbil
Diplomatic Support Center and Erbil Air Ops in the
north of the country. In addition to an airfield,
the site also boasts contractor housing, a main
dining hall, a sandwich shop and snack bar,
laundry facilities, warehouses, fuel storage
tanks, and a fire station. According to CENTCOM,
personnel from the US Office of Security
Cooperation-Iraq - military advisors working with
that country's armed forces - also operate out of
Umm Qasar Naval Base in the south of the country,
the Taji National Logistics Depot just north of
Baghdad, and the nearby Besmaya Combined Training
Center.
Today, the Corps of Engineers has
essentially ended work on America's civilian bases
in Iraq. "Anything that we are doing for
Department of State at this stage would be very
minor," Kibler told TomDispatch. While the State
Department is now in charge of carrying out the
building boom at the embassy compound, the Corps
of Engineers continues to support
nation-building-type projects for the Iraqis that
it carried out from 2004 to 2011, with another
four contracts worth $2.3 million anticipated in
2013.
What, me pivot? During the
Obama years, the Corps of Engineers' Middle East
District has also awarded contracts for work in
Pakistan ($1.1 million), Jordan ($4.7 million),
Saudi Arabia ($5.3 million), the United Arab
Emirates ($6.6 million), Kuwait ($33.7 million)
and Kyrgyzstan ($58.2 million). In addition, it
anticipates awarding at least another $5.9 million
in construction contracts in Kuwait in 2013, while
contracting documents indicate that the Air Force
plans to install two 20,000-gallon water storage
tanks at that country's Ali Al Salem Air Base in
the near future. The Corps reported no anticipated
contracts in the United Arab Emirates for 2013,
but documents examined by TomDispatch suggest that
the Army is currently planning to build new armory
facilities at that country's Al Minhad Base.
When asked why funding is on the rise for
work in Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain - total
expenditures between 2011 and 2012 rose from $2.4
million to $91 million, $41.7 million to $203.4
million, and zero to $232.4 million, respectively
- CENTCOM played down its significance. This
massive jump in construction dollars, the
command's spokesman Oscar Seára claimed,
represented nothing more than past funding
requests winding their way through the Pentagon's
bureaucracy. "It doesn't signal a pivot or
strategic shift."
The former Central Asian
Soviet "socialist republics" of Kyrgyzstan,
Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan ("partly free", "not
free", and "not free", respectively, according to
Freedom House) are prime sites for new
construction as well. Ten contracts were awarded
as fiscal 2012 ended for projects there. Carried
out under the auspices of CENTCOM and USACE, they
include a string of border checkpoints, customs
facilities, and training complexes, in addition to
multiple canine training centers and "drug
control" offices, for those countries' security
forces. "Everything that we're doing there is
aimed at helping these countries monitor their
borders and helping keep the flow of anything
illegal from going in or out of their countries,"
says Kibler.
While the flow of
construction money into Central Asia may look like
part of the Obama administration's announced
"pivot to Asia", a "rebalancing" of Pentagon
resources eastward, CENTCOM dismisses the notion.
"What you are seeing is the natural progression of
assisting with border-security development where
the funding has finally caught up to previous
proposals and requests for support," Seara told
TomDispatch. "It takes time for funding to flow,
and what you're seeing is indicative of nothing
beyond that."
Pivot or not, the Obama
administration shows little sign of slowing its
Middle Eastern building boom, despite the recent
rhetoric about a similar pivot from military
interventions abroad to nation-building at home.
For the last four years, even while drawing down
US forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon has pumped
more than a billion dollars into entrenching and
expanding its presence in the Greater Middle East.
In 2012, with American cities in desperate
need of reconstruction dollars, the US military
out of Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan winding
down, Mideast construction contracts ballooned to
new Obama-era heights. Even as the president talks
about lessening America's footprint abroad, the
Pentagon is quietly digging in and expanding out.
While countless municipalities affected by
superstorm Sandy ask for reconstruction funds,
taxpayer dollars dedicated to building
transportation infrastructure and water treatment
plants are headed halfway around the world.
Just as the Pentagon's refusal to offer an
accurate count of regional bases built with
taxpayer dollars doesn't mean they don't exist,
so, too, the White House's no-comment on
Washington's stimulus package in the Greater
Middle East can't erase reality. Despite the
rhetoric about domestic nation-building, there's a
more conflicted narrative playing out in the
region, and it won't remain hidden forever.
Nick Turse is the managing
editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the
Nation Institute. An award-winning journalist, his
work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the
Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. He is the
author/editor of several books, including the just
published The Changing Face of Empire: Special
Ops, Drones, Spies, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases,
and Cyber Warfare (Haymarket Books). His
website is NickTurse.com.
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