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<dd><h2><b>The Pentagon Garrisons the Gulf</b></h2>
<dd><font size=1>
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175159/tomgram:_nick_turse,_out_of_iraq,_into_the_gulf/#more" eudora="autourl">
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<dd><font size=3>As Washington Talks Iraq Withdrawal, the Pentagon Builds
Up Bases in the Region<br>
</b>
<dd>By Nick Turse<br><br>
<dd>Despite recent large-scale insurgent suicide bombings that have
<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSLT301547">
killed</a> scores of civilians and the fact that well over 100,000 U.S.
troops are still deployed in that country, coverage of the U.S. 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 Bush years and confirmed by
President Obama, to
<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1023/p02s04-usfp.html">draw
down</a> U.S. troops in Iraq to 50,000 by August 2010 and
<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/President44/story?id=6700444&page=1&page=1">
withdraw</a> most of the remaining forces by December 2011.<br><br>
<dd><a name="more"></a>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 U.S. forces will remain garrisoned on several large and
remotely situated U.S. bases in Iraq well past December 2011. Still
others will be stationed close by -- on bases throughout the region
where, with little
<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E5DA1F31F93BA2575AC0A9639C8B63">
media attention</a><a name="more"></a> since the run-up to the invasion
of Iraq in 2003, construction to harden, expand, and upgrade U.S. and
allied facilities has gone on to this day.<br>
<br>
<dd>Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee early this year,
General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM),
stated: "The Arabian Peninsula commands significant U.S. attention
and focus because of its importance to our interests and the potential
for insecurity." He
<a href="http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:Kt-hvr0zm00J:armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2009/April/Petraeus%252004-01-09.pdf+petraeus+%22the+countries+of+the+Arabian+Peninsula%22&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgfWXBDHrK87Gbaasjm9BppV4RrbMtmTtg_nOA3d-GLxFML4u9EOflk-bgAQ1IwW2SlL7sug-31JFAH8W7Xo6YYINBapEVhAbnbPFCXoh_w6sFiUpT9p0k03MgHFLs1pJ7gVyBy&sig=AFQjCNEw-W_zgF4TVrdYsrKU0oBwoM5C7Q">
continued</a>:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>"[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."<br><br>
</dl>
<dd>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 U.S. sites and those of its key regional partners.
These are often ignored facts-on-the-ground, which signal just how
enduring the U.S. 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
<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/05/13/national/w085749D54.DTL">
governments</a>, due to domestic public opinion, often prefer that no
publicity be given to the growing American military
"footprint."<br><br>
<dd>Given that the current conflict with al-Qaeda stemmed, in no small
part, from the U.S. military presence in the region, the issue is
obviously of importance. Nonetheless, coverage has been so poor that much
about U.S. military efforts there remains unknown. A review of U.S.
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.<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>Qatar: The Pentagon's Persian Gulf Pentagon<br><br>
</b>
<dd>In 1996, although it had no air force of its own, the Persian Gulf
nation of Qatar built
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/28/international/worldspecial/28BASE.html">
Al Udeid Air Base</a> at a cost of more than $1 billion. The goal:
attracting the U.S. military. In September 2001, U.S. 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
<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/qatar-base-may-provide-permanent-home-for-us-troops-607273.html">
at and around</a> Al Udeid. In 2005, the Qatari government spent
almost $400 million to build a cutting-edge
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/international/middleeast/18bases.html">
regional air operations center</a>.<br><br>
<dd>Today, Qatar is all but indispensable to the U.S. 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."<br><br>
<dd>Qatar has not, however, picked up the whole tab for the expanding
U.S. 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 U.S. 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 (DoD)
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.<br><br>
<dd>Later in the month,
<a href="http://www.aici-ho.com/index.html">American International
Contractors</a>, 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.<br><br>
<dd>Bahrain Base's and Kuwait's Subways<br><br>
</b>
<dd>In nearby Bahrain -- a tiny kingdom of 750,000 people -- the U.S.
<a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL1921686420070219?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0">
stations</a> 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 <a href="http://www.contrack.com/">Contrack
International</a>. It received more than $50 million in U.S. government
funds for such projects as building two "multi-story facilities for
the U.S. Navy" complete with state-of-the-art communication
interfaces and exterior landscaping.<br><br>
<dd>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
<a href="https://www.cnic.navy.mil/Bahrain/AboutCNIC/TenantCommands/NEXBahrain/index.htm">
crown jewel</a> in Bahrain -- a 188,000 square-foot mega-facility known
as "the Freedom Souq" 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 a 24/7
mini-mart," while selling everything from cosmetics and cameras to
beer and wine.<br><br>
<dd>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 U.S. Air Force and members of other
service branches do much the same, operating out of the island's Camp
Justice. From 2001-2009, the 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 U.S. Army alone spent $46 million
between 2001-2009 on construction projects.<br><br>
<dd>In 1991, the U.S. military helped to push Saddam Hussein's army out
of Kuwait. After that, however, the country's leader, Sheikh Jaber
al-Ahmed al-Sabah,
<a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20063363,00.html">
refused to return home</a> "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.
<a href="http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=16839">
Camp Arifjan</a> grew exponentially as the Iraq War ramped up, gaining
notoriety along the way as the
<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-10-14-iraqfraud_N.htm">
epicenter of a massive graft</a> and corruption scandal. Today, the base
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/kuwait/6010924/Kuwait-thwarts-plot-to-attack-US-army-base.html">
houses</a> about 15,000 U.S. troops and features such fast-food favorites
as Pizza Hut, Hardees, Subway, and Burger King.<br><br>
<dd>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,
volley-ball 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.<br><br>
<dd>Writing about the base recently, Captain Charles Barrett of the 3rd
Infantry Division's 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team
<a href="http://armylive.dodlive.mil/index.php/tag/kuwait/">remarked</a>,
"There's a USO with computers and a Café. You know the café is good
because it has that little mark over the letter 'e.' Soldiers are gaming
on XBOX, Play Station and Wii. There are phone banks and board games and
a place where parents can read to their kids and have the DVD mailed
home."<br><br>
<dd>The price tag for living the big-box-base lifestyle in Kuwait has,
however, been steep. From 2003 to 2009, the U.S. Army spent in excess of
$502 million on contracts for construction projects in the small,
oil-rich nation, while the Air Force added almost $55 million and the
Navy another $7 million. Total military spending there has been more
massive still. Over the same span, according to U.S. government data, the
Pentagon has spent nearly $20 billion in Kuwait, buying huge quantities
of Kuwaiti oil and purchasing logistical support from various contractors
for its facilities there (and elsewhere), among other
expenditures.<br><br>
<dd>In 2006, for example, the international construction firm Archirodon
was awarded $10 million to upgrade airfield lighting at Al-Salem and
Al-Jaber, two Kuwaiti
<a href="http://www.ali.afcent.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=11574">
air bases</a> used by American forces. Recently, there has also been a
major scaling up of work at Camp Arifjan. In September, for example, the
Pentagon awarded
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/21843/the_reconstruction_of_new_oraq">
CH2M Hill Contractors</a> a nearly $26 million deal to build a new
communications facility on the base. Just days later, defense contractor
ITT received an almost $87 million contract for maintenance and support
services there.<br><br>
<dd>Saudi Base Building and Jordan's U.S. Army Training Complex<br><br>
</b>
<dd>According to a recent Congressional Research Service report,
"From 1950 through 2006, Saudi Arabia purchased and received from
the United States weapons, military equipment, and related services
through Foreign Military Sales (FMS) worth over $62.7 billion and foreign
military construction services (FMCS) worth over $17.1 billion."
Between 1946 and 2007, the Saudis also benefited from almost $295 million
in foreign assistance funding from the U.S. military.<br><br>
<dd>From the lead up to the First Gulf War in 1990 through the 2003
invasion of Iraq, the U.S. military stationed thousands of troops in
Saudi Arabia. The American presence in the kingdom -- the location of
some of the holiest sites in Islam -- was a major factor in touching off
al-Qaeda's current war with the United States. In 2003, in
<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/05/13/national/w085749D54.DTL">
response</a> to fundamentalist pressure on the Saudi government, the U.S.
military announced it was
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2984547.stm">pulling</a>
all but a small number of trainers out of the country. Yet while many
U.S. troops have left, Pentagon contracts haven't -- a significant
portion of them for construction projects for the Saudi Arabian military,
which the U.S. trains and advises from sites like Eskan Village, a
compound 20 kilometers south of Riyadh, where 800 U.S. personnel (500 of
them advisors) are
<a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=54208">
based</a>.<br><br>
<dd>Between 2003-2009, the U.S. Army awarded $559 million in contracts
for Saudi construction projects. In 2009, for example, it gave a $160
million deal to construction firm
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/29/AR2005052900513_2.html">
Saudi Oger Limited</a> for the construction of facilities for a Saudi
mechanized brigade based at Al Hasa, a $127 million contract to
<a href="http://www.salmoc.net/proj.html">Saudi Lebanese Modern
Construction Co.</a> to erect structures for the Prince Turki Bin Abdul
Aziz Battalion, and an $82 million agreement to top Saudi construction
firm <a href="http://www.latifia.com/index.php">Al-Latifia Trading and
Contracting Company</a> to build ammunition storage bunkers, possibly at
the Saudi Arabian National Guard's Khashm Al An Training Area.<br><br>
<dd>Additionally, military
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/business/worldbusiness/10iht-military.3490496.html">
weaponry</a> has continued to flow into Saudi Arabia by way of the
Pentagon and so, too, have contracts to provide support services for that
materiel. For example, earlier this year, under a U.S. Air Force contract
extension, Cubic Corporation was
<a href="http://www.cubic.com/corp1/news/pr/2009/press_release_5-4-09.html">
awarded</a> a $9.5 million deal "to continue to operate and maintain
the air combat training system used to support F-15 fighter pilot
training for the Royal Saudi Air Force."<br><br>
<dd>Like the Saudis, Jordan's leader, King Abdullah II, has long had a
<a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/172824">
complex relationship</a> with the U.S.
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3121308.stm">shaped</a> by
domestic concerns over U.S. military action in the region and support for
Israel. As with Saudi Arabia, none of that has stopped the U.S. military
from forging ever closer ties with the kingdom.<br><br>
<dd>Recently, after testing and evaluating various training systems at
multiple U.S. Army bases, the Jordanian Armed Forces selected Cubic's
combat training center system and under the auspices of the U.S. Army,
the company was "awarded an $18 million contract to supply mobile
combat training center instrumentation and training services to the
Kingdom of Jordan."<br><br>
<dd>The Pentagon has also invested in Jordanian military infrastructure.
Between 2001-2009, the Army awarded $86 million in contracts for
Jordanian construction projects. One major beneficiary was again
Archirodon which, between 2006-2008, worked on the construction of the
<a href="http://www.archirodon.net/content/projects/sp_detail.php?mainkat=Others&dir=img/208&detail_id=208">
King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center</a> (KASOTC) -- a
state-of-the-art military and counter-terrorism training
<a href="http://www.kasotc.com/facilities.aspx">facility</a> owned and
operated by the Jordanian government but built, in part, under a $70
million U.S. Army contract. In 2009, Archirodon was awarded two
additional contracts for $729,000 and $400,000, by the Air Force, for
unspecified work in Jordan.<br><br>
<dd>When that 1,235-acre $200 million Jordanian training center was
unveiled earlier this year, King Abdullah II himself gave the inaugural
address,
<a href="http://www.kasotc.com/news/news_061509.aspx">speaking</a>
"of his vision for KASOTC as a world-class special forces training
center." Not surprisingly, General Petraeus was also on hand to give
a speech in which he lauded Jordan as "a key partner... [which] has
placed itself at the forefront of police and military training for
regional security forces."<br><br>
<dd>Garrisoning the Gulf<br><br>
</b>
<dd>Even as it lurches toward a quasi-withdrawal from Iraq, the U.S.
military has been hunkering down and hardening its presence elsewhere in
the Middle East with little fanfare or press coverage. There has been
almost no discussion in this country of a host of possible repercussions
that might come from this, ranging from local opposition to the U.S.
military's presence to the arming of undemocratic and repressive regimes
in the region. With the sole exception of Iran, the U.S. military has
fully garrisoned the nations of the Persian Gulf with air bases, naval
bases, desert posts, training centers, and a whole host of other
facilities, while also building up the military capacity of nearby
Jordan.<br><br>
<dd>The CIA efforts to topple Iran's government in the 1950s,
Washington's support for Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s, the
Pentagon's troop presence in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s -- all were
considered canny geopolitical moves in their time; all had unforeseen and
devastating consequences. The money the Pentagon has recently been
pouring into the nations of the Persian Gulf to bulk up base
infrastructure has only tied the U.S. ever more tightly to the region's
autocratic, often unpopular regimes, while further arming and
militarizing an area traditionally considered unstable. The Pentagon's
Persian Gulf base build-up has already cost Americans billions in tax
dollars. What the costs in "blowback" will be remains the
unknown part of the equation.<br><br>
<dd>Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and the winner
of a 2009 Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction as well as a James
Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. His work has appeared in the
</i>Los Angeles Times,
<a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081201/turse/single">the
Nation</a>, In These Times, and regularly at TomDispatch. Turse is
currently a fellow at New York University's Center for the United States
and the Cold War. A paperback edition of his book
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805089195/ref=nosim/?tag=nationbooks08-20">
The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives</a>
(Metropolitan Books) was published earlier this year. His website is
<a href="http://www.nickturse.com/">NickTurse.com</a>.<br><br>
<br><br>
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