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SPEAKING
FREELY
Time up for US troops in Saudi
Arabia
By Christopher Preble
Following the military's stunning success in
removing Saddam Hussein's regime from power, Air Force
General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, recently admitted that US forces might no
longer be needed in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. And
although Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hastened
to clarify that no final decision has been made on troop
withdrawals, the earlier comments of other Pentagon
officials suggest that the Bush administration has no
intention of keeping troops in the region.
That
is good new for the troops, for the taxpayers and for
the people of the region. The troops are unnecessary.
They are costly. And their presence in the region makes
us less, not more, secure.
Our military forces
exist to serve one essential purpose: defend vital US
interests. When forces sent abroad - or forward
deployed, in Pentagon-speak - do not contribute to this
mission they are, at best, a waste of money.
And
the costs are substantial. Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz estimated that operations against Iraq in
the 12 years since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991
cost US$30 billion, but this figure focused only on
Iraq, therefore underestimating the total cost of all
forces in the region. Earl Ravenal, professor emeritus
of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service,
estimated that the US spends $50 billion a year to
maintain forces in the region.
The costs are
measured in more than strictly dollar terms. Ending the
permanent deployment of American military personnel to
the Persian Gulf would go a long way toward reducing the
operational tempo for our forces, which were stretched
to breaking point even before the latest military
buildup. This, in turn, will reduce the unseen and
immeasurable hardships, including family separation, and
will likely contribute to better troop retention.
The troop withdrawal is further justified by the
recognition that the Saudi bases were completely
superfluous in the Iraq War. Saudi Arabia first agreed
to the deployment of US forces in the kingdom in late
1990, following Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, on the
understanding that the troops would be removed.
But the troops remained. The risk, and the
evidence of widespread resentment towards the American
presence, was revealed when the Khobar Towers barracks
in Dahran were bombed in 1996, an attack that left 19
Americans dead, and another 372 wounded. American forces
were then redeployed to more secure locations elsewhere
in the country, but they have become virtual prisoners
in closely guarded enclaves.
The Saudis,
sensitive to domestic opinion, officially barred US
aircraft based in the kingdom from conducting strikes on
Iraq. No matter. Hundreds of sorties were flown by
aircraft launched from bases that were located thousands
of miles away from the target area. We know of aircraft
launching from the United Kingdom and tiny Diego Garcia
in the Indian Ocean. Even more incredible: a number of
bombing missions were conducted by aircraft flying
round-trips from the US.
Ground troops are
hardly superfluous in modern warfare. But many of the
most successful infantry operations combined vertical
envelopment - inserting troops into combat zones from
the air - with ground assault by tanks and armored
vehicles. These troops need not sit for weeks or months
in the midst of a hostile landscape. Besides, with the
removal of Saddam's regime, no sensible person is
contemplating another major ground invasion of any other
Gulf State.
But American forces in the Middle
East are not just unnecessary, they are demonstrably
harmful. In late February, before the start of the war,
Wolfowitz admitted that the price paid to keep forces in
the region had been "far more than money". Anger at
American pressure on Iraq, and resentment over the
stationing of US forces in Saudi Arabia, Wolfowitz
conceded, had "been Osama bin Laden's principal
recruiting device". Looking ahead to the post-Saddam
period, Wolfowitz implied that the removal of Saddam
would enable the US to withdraw troops from the region.
"I can't imagine anyone here wanting to ... be there for
another 12 years to continue helping recruit
terrorists."
The president of the US should
never submit American foreign policy goals to the
vagaries of international public opinion. But when the
troops serve no useful purpose, and when their presence
is known to contribute to anti-American sentiment, and
when those who wish us ill capitalize on this
anti-Americanism to encourage disgruntled psychopaths to
fly airplanes into buildings, it is clear that our
forces in the Middle East make America less, not more,
secure.
Christopher Preble is director
of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute
Published with permission of the Cato Institute
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