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Basic questions about
bases
By Ashraf Fahim
Hardly a day has gone by in the past few
weeks without a new press report detailing the US
military's plans to reduce its footprint in Iraq
next year. First it was a leaked British memo
saying that Britain would hand over southern Iraq
to the Iraqis and the US would cut its troops in
half. Then it was General George W Casey, the
senior commander in Iraq, promising a "fairly
substantial" US withdrawal by the summer of 2006.
Finally, there was the announcement of a joint
Iraqi-US committee to determine the "conditions"
for a US exit.
The Bush administration, it
would seem, is finally responding to pervasive
anti-occupation sentiment in the US and Iraq. But
the raft of announcements does little to address
what many believe is a deeper problem - the Iraqi
insurgency is likely being driven by fears that
even once the large majority of US forces leave,
enough will remain behind in permanent bases to
allow the US to control Iraq's destiny.
There is now a growing chorus in the US
arguing that it should be made clear to Iraqis
that all US forces will eventually depart. As the
Iraqi insurgency rages unabated, with scores of US
soldiers killed in the first days of August alone,
the notion that such a promise might alter the
current dynamic is taking hold in the mainstream.
Two members of Congress have separately sponsored
resolutions calling for a declaration that the US
will not maintain a long-term military presence in
Iraq.
Senator John Kerry, who introduced
the idea into the national discourse during last
fall's first presidential debate, restated it in a
recent op-ed in the New York Times. "The president
must ... announce immediately that the United
States will not have a permanent military presence
in Iraq," Kerry wrote. "Erasing suspicions that
the occupation is indefinite is critical to
eroding support for the insurgency."
The
proposal has also gained diverse support in policy
circles. Larry Diamond, a former senior adviser to
the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority, recently
wrote that the administration's refusal to declare
it doesn't seek permanent military bases "has
aroused Iraqi suspicions that we seek long-term
domination of their country". And Anthony
Cordesman of the conservative Center for Strategic
and International Studies, regarded as the dean of
Middle East strategic studies by the Washington
establishment, said in recent testimony to the
Senate that the administration should "make it
clear that the US and Britain will not maintain
post-insurgency bases in Iraq".
Bases
built to last
It is an open question
whether or not the Bush administration will be
willing to give Iraqis the type of guarantee being
called for. Any serious withdrawal is a long way
off since, by most accounts, Iraqi troops are far
from ready to take over from the US. Incoming head
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace,
informed Congress on June 29 that a recent
classified Pentagon report had concluded that only
"a small number" of Iraqi troops could fight the
insurgency unassisted. And many analysts feel that
the administration wants to keep a presence in
Iraq irrespective of Iraqi military preparedness
in order to safeguard America's larger strategic
interests in the region (chiefly oil).
Joost Hiltermann, of the International
Crisis Group (ICG), told Asia Times Online it
would be strange if America didn't intend to stay
in Iraq. "One of the reasons they invaded, as far
as I can tell, is because they needed to shift
their military operation from Saudi Arabia," he
said, "and Iraq was probably the easiest one in
terms of a big country to support their presence
in the Gulf." The idea that the US wanted to swap
Iraq for Saudi Arabia was acknowledged by
then-deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz in
an interview with Vanity Fair in 2003.
Persistent reports that the US is
constructing permanent bases in Iraq lend credence
to the view that the Bush administration plans to
stay. The Chicago Tribune reported in March 2004
that the US was building 14 "enduring" bases in
Iraq, and the Washington Post reported in May that
US forces would eventually be consolidated into
four large, permanent air bases.
Erik
Leaver, of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)
and a long-time proponent of a promise to close US
military bases, told Asia Times Online that the
kind of construction taking place belies
statements from President George W Bush that the
US only intends to stay "as long as necessary and
not one day more", as Bush said on April 13, 2004.
Not only are ammunition dumps and concrete runways
and roads being built, he said, but so is
long-term housing for US troops.
"We can
tell by looking at the supplementals and the
defense bills that they are building concrete
masonry barracks," says Leaver, "And some of the
justification is that tents and containers only
have a life span of three to five years. The
implication is that they need something longer
than that." Leaver said the military did have a
plausible rationale for using concrete. "If
mortars are being lobbed into military bases then
you want to put soldiers into concrete masonry
barracks for their safety," he said, "but that's
the same stuff that my house and office building
are constructed from, and those things are pretty
permanent."
US Senator Gary Hart captured
the inconsistencies such construction reveal in
the Bush administration's rationale for its Iraq
project. "If the goal ... was to overthrow Saddam
Hussein, install a friendly government in Baghdad,
set up a permanent political and military presence
in Iraq, and dominate the behavior of the region
(including securing oil supplies) then you build
permanent bases for some kind of permanent
American military presence," Hart wrote in May.
"If the goal was to spread democracy and freedom,
then you don't."
Keeping Its options
open
Another question, of course, is
whether, even if the Bush administration declared
it would pull out altogether, its guarantee would
have the desired effect.
Leaver of IPS
thinks it would. "Most of the insurgents and their
supporters," he said, "are opposed to the
occupation and the long-term nature of it, so
making that declaration is vitally important."
Though support for the insurgency is
strongest among Sunni Arabs, the vast majority of
Iraqis want a quick end to the occupation. A
January public opinion poll by Zogby International
found more than 80% support for a US withdrawal
immediately or when a permanent government is
elected. This sentiment is reflected in a
resolution currently gaining support in the Iraqi
parliament (103 of 275 members have signed)
calling for "a timetable for the withdrawal of
occupation troops".
In addition, the
movement of Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr claimed
last week to have gathered one million signatures
on an anti-occupation petition. But it cannot be
said definitively that Iraqis want no US troops to
remain at all. Little polling has been done in
that regard, although an Oxford Research Institute
poll in June 2004 found that only 1.2% of Iraqis
wanted American troops to remain indefinitely.
Despite widespread anti-occupation
sentiment, Hiltermann of ICG doesn't agree that
promising a full exit is either wise or necessary.
"It's critical that Iraqis, especially those who
are fence-sitters when it comes to the insurgency
are convinced that the US will leave in the
foreseeable future," he said. But he cautions
against a timetable, or declaring an intent to
leave altogether. "You don't want to give the
insurgents the idea that they were victorious and
embolden them," he said.
The views of the
Sunni Arab minority on the long-term relationship
with the US are crucial to the longevity of the
insurgency. Hiltermann believes that despite
widespread anti-American feeling among Sunni
Arabs, they have yet to make up their minds on the
relationship with the US. "At the moment all the
Sunni Arabs are saying is that they don't want
American troops to stay as an occupation army," he
said. "They have not moved to the point where they
say we want them out completely and no future
security relationship with the US. And so they
might be quite flexible on that, or they might
not."
Yet profound mistrust of US
intentions, particularly among the strongly
nationalistic Sunni Arabs, is undoubtedly stoking
fears that Iraq will become an American
protectorate. A recent op-ed in Iraq's Azzaman
newspaper captured the skepticism: "Imagine there
are no oil reserves in Iraq. First, the US and
Britain will immediately withdraw their troops and
end their invasion, the cause of so much harm,
killings and atrocities." Fears that the US
intends to divide and weaken Iraq, and thereby the
Arab and Muslim worlds, underlie Sunni opposition
to the devolved federalism now being debated in
the constitutional talks (as does self-interest,
of course, since most of the oil is in Shi'ite
areas).
At the moment, the relative merits
of a hypothetical US promise not to stay in
perpetuity are academic since the Bush
administration appears determined to keep its
options open. Although it has declared its intent
to draw down its forces next year, it has turned
rhetorical cartwheels to avoid the question of a
long-term presence. Rumsfeld has equivocated less
than Bush, but in testimony to Congress on
February 17, he still found a nifty caveat: "I can
assure you that we have no intention at the
present time of putting permanent bases in Iraq,"
he said.
The disposition of Iraqi Prime
Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and the Iraqi leadership
is no less ambiguous. Even as the largely Shi'ite
leadership draws closer to Iran, which has no
interest in a long-term US presence on its western
borders, it has left the door open to the US.
Jaafari did declare on July 27, "It is the great
desire of the Iraqi people to see the coalition
forces on their way out." But he made clear that
any reductions are condition-based.
Hiltermann leans towards the view that the
Iraqi government's cooperation with the US is
tactical rather than strategic for the time being.
"There is a growing impatience in Shi'ite quarters
with the Americans at all levels," he said. "As a
result, they are probably less and less inclined
to have a serious American presence in Iraq over
the long term. Whether that would mean they would
not want to have a security relationship with the
US depends in part on the nature of such a
relationship."
Recent signs indicate that
in the medium term the Iraqi leadership isn't
inclined to change horses in midstream. Rumsfeld
said after meeting with Jaafari on July 27 that US
military lawyers were looking into the legalities
of extending the US presence, a statement he would
hardly make were his allies in Baghdad not in
sync.
Asking permission
If the Bush
administration wishes to retain a military
presence in Iraq it may yet find the Iraqi
leadership amenable. They are, after all,
dependent on US forces for their survival. But the
Iraqi public is fiercely nationalistic ("a proud
and independent people", as Bush called them) and
their suspicions of the US can only grow as rumors
proliferate of concrete being poured in distant
military bases. And unless the Iraqi government
actually consults its people before inviting the
Americans to stay, even a nominally democratic
Iraq could become just like the other US allies in
the region, in which there is an immense chasm
between the desires of the rulers and the
aspirations of the ruled.
Ashraf
Fahim is a freelance writer on Middle Eastern
affairs based in New York and London. His writing
can be found at www.storminateacup.org.uk
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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