Page 1 of 2 Out of Iraq, into the Gulf
By Nick Turse
Despite recent large-scale insurgent suicide bombings that have killed scores
of civilians and the fact that well over 100,000 US troops are still deployed
in that country, coverage of the US 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 George W Bush
years and confirmed by President Barack Obama, to draw-down US 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 sizeable contingent of US forces will remain
garrisoned on several large and remotely situated US 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 US and allied facilities has
gone on to this day.
Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee early this year, General
David Petraeus, head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), stated: "The Arabian
Peninsula commands significant US 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 US 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 US sites and those of its key regional
partners. These are often ignored facts-on-the-ground, which signal just how
enduring the US military presence in the region is likely to be, no matter what
happens in Iraq.
Press coverage of this long-term infrastructural build-up 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 US military presence in the region, the issue is obviously of importance.
Nonetheless, coverage has been so poor that much about US military efforts
there remains unknown. A review of US 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 build-up,
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 US$1 billion. The goal:
attracting the US military. In September 2001, US 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 US military. Just recently, for
example, Central Command redeployed 750 personnel from its Tampa, Florida
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 US 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 US 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 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 "US-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 bases and Kuwait's subways
In nearby Bahrain - a tiny kingdom of 750,000 people - the US 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 US government funds for
such projects as building two "multi-story facilities for the US 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 - an 188,000 square-foot mega-facility known as "the Freedom Souq
[Arabic for market]" 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 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 US Air Force and members of other service branches do much the
same, operating out of the island's Camp Justice. From 2001-2009, the US 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 US Army alone spent $46 million between 2001-2009 on construction
projects.
In 1991, the US 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 US 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 cafes, 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.
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