Today's
post on the mega-bases in Iraq represents but one of the missing
stories of the Bush years that TomDispatch has been dedicated to
covering. The site's new book, The
World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire,
just published, is, in essence, a striking history of the missing
stories of our mad age, the stories the mainstream media chose to
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in our lives can ever be unbuilt. You can also check out a video
in which I discuss the issue of the missing mega-bases in Iraq,
now finally in the news, by clicking
here.
The Greatest
Story Never Told
Finally, the U.S. Mega-Bases in Iraq Make the News
It's just
a $5,812,353 contract – chump change for the Pentagon –
and not even one of those notorious "no-bid" contracts either. Ninety-eight
bids were solicited by the Army Corps of Engineers and 12 were received
before the contract was awarded this May 28th to Wintara, Inc. of
Fort Washington, Maryland, for "replacement facilities for Forward
Operating Base Speicher, Iraq." According to a Department of Defense
press
release, the work on those "facilities" to be replaced at the
base near Saddam Hussein's hometown, Tikrit, is expected to
be completed by January 31, 2009, a mere 11 days after a new president
enters the Oval Office. It is but one modest reminder that, when
the next administration hits Washington, American bases in Iraq,
large and small, will still be undergoing the sort of repair and
upgrading that has been ongoing for years.
In fact, in
the last five-plus years, untold billions of taxpayer dollars have
been spent on the construction and upgrading of those bases. When
asked back in the fall of 2003, only months after Baghdad fell to
U.S. troops, Lt. Col. David Holt, the Army engineer then "tasked
with facilities development" in Iraq, proudly indicated that "several
billion dollars" had already
been invested in those fast-rising bases. Even then, he was suitably
amazed, commenting that "the numbers are staggering." Imagine what
he might have said, barely two and a half years later, when the
U.S. reportedly had 106
bases, mega to micro, all across the country.
By now, billions
have evidently gone into single massive mega-bases like the U.S.
air base at Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. It's a "16-square-mile
fortress," housing perhaps 40,000 U.S. troops, contractors, special
ops types, and Defense Department employees. As the Washington
Post's Tom Ricks, who visited Balad back
in 2006, pointed out – in a rare piece on one of our mega-bases
– it's essentially "a small American town smack in the middle
of the most hostile part of Iraq." Back then, air traffic at the
base was already being compared to Chicago's O'Hare International
or London's Heathrow – and keep in mind that Balad has been
steadily upgraded ever since to support an "air surge" that, unlike
the President's 2007 "surge" of 30,000 ground troops, has yet to
end.
Building
Ziggurats
While American
reporters seldom think these bases – the most essential U.S.
facts on the ground in Iraq – are important to report on, the
military press regularly writes about them with pride. Such pieces
offer a tiny window into just how busily the Pentagon is working
to upgrade and improve what are already state-of-the-art garrisons.
Here's just a taste of what's been going on recently at Balad, one
of the largest bases on foreign soil on the planet, and but one
of perhaps five mega-bases in that country:
Consider,
for instance, this description
of an air-field upgrade from official U.S. Air Force news coverage,
headlined: "'Dirt Boyz' pave way for aircraft, Airmen":
"In
less than four months, Balad Air Base Dirt Boyz have placed and
finished more than 12,460 feet of concrete and added approximately
90,000 square feet of pavement to the airfield… Without the extra
pavement courtesy of the Dirt Boyz, fewer aircraft would be able
to be positioned and maintained at Balad AB. Having fewer aircraft
at the base would directly affect the Air Force's ability to place
surveillance assets in the air and to drop munitions on targets...
The ongoing flightline projects at Balad AB consist of concrete
pad extensions that will provide occupation surfaces for multiple
aircraft of various types."
Or here's
a proud
description of what Detachment 6 of the 732nd Expeditionary
Civil Engineer Squadron did on its recent tour in Balad:
"'We
constructed more than 25,000 square feet of living, dining and operations
buildings from the ground up,' said Staff Sgt. John Wernegreen…
'This project gave the [U.S.] Army's [3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker
Cavalry Regiment] and Iraqi army [soldiers] a place to carry out
their mission of controlling the battlespace around the Eastern
Diyala Province.'"
And here's
a caption,
accompanying an Air Force photo of work at Balad: "Airmen of the
407th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron pavement and equipment
team repair utility cuts here June 11. The team replaced approximately
30 cubic meters of concrete over newly installed power line cables."
And another:
"Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron heavy equipment operator,
contours a new sidewalk here, June 10. Sidewalk repair is being
accomplished throughout the base housing area to eliminate tripping
hazards." (The sidewalks on such bases go with bus routes, traffic
lights, and speeding tickets – in a country parts of which
the U.S. has helped turn into little more than a giant pothole.)
Or how about
this
caption for a photo of military men on upgrade duty working
on copper cable as "part of the new tents to trailers project."
It's little wonder that, in another rare piece, NPR's defense correspondent
Guy Raz reported,
in October 2007, that Balad was "one giant construction project,
with new roads, sidewalks, and structures going up… all with an
eye toward the next few decades."
Think
of this as the greatest American story of these years never told
– or more accurately, since there have been a few reports on
a couple of these mega-bases – never shown. After all,
what an epic of construction this has been, as the Pentagon built
a series of fortified American towns, each some 15 to 20 miles around,
with many of the amenities of home, including big name fast-food
franchises, PXes, and the like, in a hostile land in the midst of
war and occupation. In terms of troops, the President may only have
put his "surge" strategy into play in January
2007, but his Pentagon has been "surging" on base construction
since April 2003.
Now, imagine
as well that hundreds of thousands of Americans have passed through
these mega-bases, including the enormous al-Asad Air Base (sardonically
nicknamed "Camp
Cupcake" for its amenities) in the Western desert of Iraq, and
the ill-named (or never renamed) Camp Victory on the edge of Baghdad.
Troops have surged through these bases, of course. Private contractors
galore. Hired guns. Pentagon officials. Military commanders. Top
administration figures. Visiting Congressional delegations. Presidential
candidates. And, of course, the journalists.
It has been,
for instance, a commonplace of these years to see a TV correspondent
reporting on the situation in Iraq, or what the American military
had to say about Iraq, from Baghdad's enormous Camp Victory. And
yet, if you think about it, that camera, photographing ABC's fine
reporter Martha Raddatz or other reporters on similar stop-overs,
never pans across the base itself. You don't even get a glimpse,
unless you have access to homemade G.I. videos or Pentagon-produced
propaganda.
Similarly,
last year, the President landed
at Camp Cupcake for a meeting
with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with reporters in tow.
You could see shots of him getting off the plane (just as he does
everywhere), goofing around with troops, or shaking hands with the
Iraqi prime minister but, as far as I know, none of the reporters
with him stayed on to give us a view of the base itself.
Imagine if
just about no one knew that the pyramids had been built. Ditto the
Great Wall of China. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Coliseum.
The Eiffel Tower. The Statue of Liberty. Or any other architectural
wonder of the world you'd care to mention.
After all,
these giant bases, rising from the smashed birthplace of Western
civilization, were not only built on (and sometimes
out of bits of) the ancient ruins of that land, but are functionally
modern ziggurats.
They are the cherished monuments of the Bush administration. Even
though its spokespeople have regularly refused to use the word "permanent"
in relation to them – in fact, in relation to any U.S. base
on the planet – they have been built to long outlast the Bush
administration itself. They were, in fact, clearly meant to be key
garrisons of a Pax Americana in the Middle East for generations
to come. And, not surprisingly, they reek of permanency. They are
the unavoidable essence – unless, like most Americans, you
don't know they're there – of Bush administration planning
in Iraq. Without them, no discussion of Iraq policy in this country
really makes sense.
And that,
of course, is what makes their missing-in-action quality on the
American landscape so striking. Yes, a couple of good American reporters
have written pieces about one or two of them, but most Americans,
as we know, get their news from television and – though no
one can watch all the news that flows, 24/7, into American living
rooms, it's a reasonable bet that a staggering percentage of Americans
have never had the opportunity to see the remarkable structures
their tax dollars have paid for, and continue to pay for, in occupied
Iraq.
This is the
sort of thing you might expect of Bush-style offshore prisons, or
gulags, or concentration camps. And yet Americans have regularly
and repeatedly seen what Guantanamo looks like. They have seen something
of what Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq looks like. But not the bases.
Perhaps one explanation lies in this: On rare occasions when Americans
are asked by pollsters whether they want "permanent bases" in Iraq,
significant majorities answer in the negative. You can only assume
that, as on many other subjects, the Bush administration preferred
to fly under the radar screen on this one – and the media generally
concurred.
And let's
remember one more base, though it's never called that: the massive
imperial embassy, perhaps the biggest on the planet, being built,
for nearly
three-quarters of a billion dollars, on a nearly Vatican-sized
104-acre plot of land inside the Green Zone in Baghdad. It will
be home to 1,000 "diplomats." It will cost an estimated $1.2
billion a year just to operate. With its own electricity and
water systems, its anti-missile defenses, recreation, "retail and
shopping" areas, and "blast-resistant" work spaces, it is essentially
a fortified citadel, a base inside the fortified American heart
of the Iraq capital. Like the mega-bases, it emits an aura of American,
not Iraqi, "sovereignty." It, too, is being built "for the ages."
A Land
Grab, American-style
The issue
of the mega-bases in Iraq first surfaced barely days after Baghdad
had fallen. It was on April 20, 2003, to be exact, and on the front-page
of the New York Times in a piece headlined,
"Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Key Iraq Bases." Thom Shanker
and Eric Schmitt wrote: "American military officials, in interviews
this week, spoke of maintaining perhaps four bases in Iraq that
could be used in the future," including what became Camp Victory.
The story, and the very idea of "permanent" bases, was promptly
denied by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld – then essentially
disappeared from the news for years. (To this day, again as far
as I know, the New York Times has never written another significant
front-page story on the subject.)
Now, however,
the bases are, suddenly and startlingly, in the news (and, of course,
being written about and discussed
on TV as if they had long been part of everyday media analysis).
This week, in fact, they hit the front
page of the Washington Post, due to protests by Iraqi
leaders close to the Bush administration. They were angered by,
and leaking like mad about, American strong-arm tactics in negotiations
for a long-term Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that would officially
embed American-controlled bases in Iraq for the long-term, potentially
tie the hands of a future American president on Iraq policy, and
represent a sovereignty grab of the first order. (A typical comment
from a pro-Maliki Iraqi politician in that Post piece: "The
Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization
of Iraq…")
The growing
Iraqi protests – in the streets, in parliament, and among the
negotiators – certainly helped spark coverage in this country.
A persistent and intrepid British reporter, Patrick
Cockburn of The Independent, helpfully broke the story
of Bush administration demands days before it became significant
news here.
But most of
the credit should really go to the Bush administration itself, which,
despite the long-term flow of events in Iraq, still wanted it all.
Greed, coupled with desperation, seems to have done the trick. In
all the years of the occupation, the officials of this administration
have had a tin ear for the post-colonial era they inhabit. It's
never penetrated their consciousness that the greatest story of
the twentieth century was the way previously subjected and colonized
peoples had gained (or regained) their sovereignty.
The administration
indicated this, back in 2003, with its very dream of garrisoning
a major, potentially hostile, intensely nationalistic Arab nation
in the heart of the oil lands of the planet. That the building of
enormous American bases and the basing of troops in relatively peaceful
Saudi Arabia after the First Gulf War led to disaster – think:
Osama bin Laden – mattered not a whit to top administration
officials.
It couldn't
have been clearer just how little they cared for Iraqi sovereignty
or pride when L. Paul Bremer III, George W. Bush's personal representative
and viceroy in Baghdad, before officially "returning sovereignty"
to the Iraqis in June 2004, signed the infamous (though, in this
country, little noted) Order 17.
As the law of the land in Iraq, among other things, it ensured that
all foreigners involved in the occupation project would be granted
"freedom of movement without delay throughout Iraq," and neither
their vessels, nor their vehicles, nor their aircraft would be "subject
to registration, licensing or inspection by the [Iraqi] Government."
Nor in traveling would foreign diplomats, soldiers, consultants,
security guards, or any of their vehicles, vessels, or planes be
subject to "dues, tolls, or charges, including landing and parking
fees," and so on.
When it came
to imports, including "controlled substances," there were to be
no customs fees or inspections, taxes, or much of anything else;
nor was there to be the slightest charge for the use of Iraqi "headquarters,
camps, and other premises" occupied, nor for the use of electricity,
water, or other utilities. And all private contractors were to have
total immunity from prosecution anywhere in the country. This was,
of course, freedom as theft. Order 17 would have seemed familiar
to any nineteenth century European colonialist. It granted what
used to be termed "extraterritoriality"
to Americans. Think of it as a giant get-out-of-jail-free card for
an occupying nation.
Now, imagine,
that, even after years of disaster, even in a state of discontrol,
with unsecured
global oil supplies surging toward $140 a barrel, the Bush administration
remained in the same Order 17 frame of mind. They began their
negotiations with the Iraqis accordingly. Cockburn (and other journalists
subsequently) would report that they were asking for Order 17–style
immunity for the U.S. military and all private contractors in the
country, as well as the use of up to 58 bases, even though they
evidently "only"
had 30 major ones in the country. (A leading politician of the Badr
Organization claimed that American negotiators were actually pushing
for the use of a startling 200
facilities across the country.)
They also
evidently insisted on control over Iraqi air space up to 29,000
feet, the right to bring troops in and out of the country without
informing the Iraqis, and the right to "conduct military operations
in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative
reasons of security," again without notification to the Iraqis,
no less approval of any sort. They may even have
insisted on the freedom to strike other countries from their
Iraqi bases, again without consultation or approval. In addition,
reported Cockburn, they were attempting to force their Iraqi counterparts
to agree to such a deal by threatening
to deny them at least $20 billion in Iraqi oil funds on deposit
in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Gulf Newsreported
as well that, under the American version of the agreement, "Iraqi
security institutions such as Defense, Interior and National Security
ministries, as well as armament contracts, will be under American
supervision for ten years." This was partially confirmed by the
Washington Post's Walter Pincus, who reported
on a multi-year contract just awarded to a private contractor by
the Pentagon to supply "mentors to officials with Iraq's Defense
and Interior ministries… [who] would 'advise, train [and] assist...
particular Iraqi officials.'"
Had the Bush
administration exhibited the slightest constraint, they might have
constructed a far more cosmetic version of the permanent garrisoning
of Iraq. They might have officially turned the mega-bases over to
the Iraqis and leased
them back for next to nothing. They could have let the stunning
facts they had built on the ground speak for themselves. They could
have offered "joint commands" and other palliative remedies (as
they are now evidently considering doing) that would have made their
long-term sovereignty grab look far less significant – without
necessarily being so. But their ability to strategize outside the
(Bush) box has long been limited.
Think of them
as "the me generation" on steroids, going global and imperial. Or
give them credit for consistency. They're mad dreamers who still
can't wake up, even when they find themselves in a roomful of smelling
salts.
Instead, with
their secret SOFA negotiations, they've attempted to fly under the
radar screens of both the U.S. Congress and the Iraqi people. They
wanted to embed permanent bases and a long-term policy of occupation
in Iraq in perpetuity without letting the matter rise to the level
of a treaty. (Hence, no advice and consent from the U.S. Senate.)
Not surprisingly,
this episode, too, is threatening to end in debacle. The Iraqi leadership
is in virtual revolt. Across the political spectrum, as Tony
Karon of the Rootless Cosmopolitan blog has written, the negotiations
have forced upon the Iraqis "a kind of snap survey or straw poll…
on the long-term U.S. presence, and goals for Iraq" from which the
Americans are likely to emerge the losers.
The idea of
timetables
for American departure is again being floated in Iraq. According
to Reuters, "A majority of the Iraqi parliament has written to Congress
rejecting a long-term security deal with Washington if it is not
linked to a requirement that U.S. forces leave," and unnamed
American officials are now beginning to mutter about no SOFA
deal being achieved before the Bush administration leaves office.
The administration's
man in Baghdad, Prime Minister Maliki, has declared the initial
U.S. proposal at a "dead
end" and has even begun threatening to ask American forces to
leave when their UN mandate expires at year's end. (Though much
of this may be bluff on his part, what choice does he have? Given
Iraqi attitudes toward being garrisoned forever by the U.S. military,
no Iraqi leader could remain in a position of even passing power
and agree to such terms. It would be like stamping and sealing your
own execution order.)
The Sadrists
are in the streets protesting the American presence and their leader
has just called for a "new
militia offensive" against U.S. forces. The pro-Iranian, but
American-backed, Badrists are outraged.
("Is there sovereignty for Iraq – or isn't there? If it is
left to [the Bush administration], they would ask for immunity even
for the American dogs.") The Iranians are vehemently
voting no. Opinion in the region, whether Shiite or Sunni, seems
to be following
suit. The U.S. Congress is up in arms, demanding more information
and possibly heading for hearings on the SOFA agreement and the
bases. Presidential candidate Barack Obama has insisted that any
deal be submitted to Congress, the very thing the Bush administration
has organized for more than a year to avoid.
And miracle
of all miracles, the mainstream media is finally writing about the
bases as if they mattered. Someday, before this is over, all of
us may actually see what was built in our names with our dollars.
That will be a shock, especially when you consider what the Bush
administration has proved incapable of building, or rebuilding,
in New Orleans and elsewhere in this country. In the meantime, the
President appears headed for yet another self-inflicted defeat.
Sources
for this piece and further reading: In his recent articles,
as in his past unembedded reporting, Patrick
Cockburn has shown what a good journalist can still do for the
rest of us. Special thanks go to Nick Turse for his superb and speedy
research on this piece and to Christopher Holmes for superb proofreading
on demand. In gathering material, I've also relied on a number of
sites, including Juan Cole's invaluable Informed
Comment blog (which I visit daily without fail), those splendid
hunter-gatherers of the news at Antiwar.com
and Cursor.org's daily Media Patrol,
Dan Froomkin's superb White
House Watch blog in the Washington Post, and sharp-eyed Paul
Woodward at his War in Context
blog. For those of you who want to get a little more sense of
the endless base-building activities of the Bush administration,
check out the chatty newsletter
(PDF file) of the Redhorse Association, "a group of past and present
members of the U.S. Air Force Prime Beef and Red Horse combat engineer
units."
