US New Iraq Embassy

[Fuckallyall]

From The Daily Mirror (London)

3 January 2006
EXCLUSIVE: BILLION DOLLAR BUNKER
EXCLUSIVE U.S. plans Baghdad embassy more secure than Pentagon
By Chris Hughes Security Correspondent

AMERICA is to spend £1billion on an embassy in Baghdad "more secure than the Pentagon".

Plans for the hi-tech complex are being kept secret because of the terrorist threat in Iraq.

The exact location is not being released until later this year but it is likely to be built in the heavily fortified Green Zone area where the Iraqi government and US military command is based.

The embassy will be guarded by 15ft blast walls and ground-to-air missiles and the main building will have bunkers for use during air offensives.

The grounds will include as many as 300 houses for consular and military officials.

And a large-scale barracks will be built for Marines who will protect what will be Washington's biggest and most secure overseas building.

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A US source in the Middle East said last night: "Plans for the embassy building are being kept behind closed doors because of the terrorist threat.

"It will be more secure than The Pentagon because it will be under constant threat from attack." The Green Zone is the safest part of Baghdad, surrounded by concrete blast walls and checkpoints.

The US also wants to build four massive military superbases around Iraq's capital.

The plans will fuel speculation they want to keep a firm foothold in Iraq for many years.

An Iraqi security source said last night: "The plans for the embassy building will make it the largest and best protected diplomatic building overseas for the US.

"You may as well move the Pentagon to Iraq. It will be amazingly secure but it also flies in the face of claims American is preparing to leave Iraq to be policed and governed by Iraqis.

"Plans for four superbases across the country will only reinforce the view that the US is here to stay for the duration."

The move comes despite Donald Rumsfeld revealing last week that US troop numbers in Iraq are to be reduced by 7,000 to 153,000.

Tony Blair has also predicted British troops could start pulling out this May.

Backing among the American public for President Bush's action in Iraq has fallen. Despite the opposition a Kuwait-based construction company has already been handed £175million ($300 million) of the building deal.

Plans for four huge military bases placed strategically around Baghdad are also being drawn up.

The superbases will be in central Iraq, close to the capital, and also to the north, west and east of Baghdad.

Several other Middle Eastern and American building firms are tendering for the remaining budget.

Funding will probably come from Iraqi oil revenues channelled into redeveloping the country.

America has a string of 'secret' military bases throughout the Gulf states, including Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar.

The huge desert complexes, including airstrips and aircraft hangars, are up to 20 miles square and are not featured on civilian maps.

They started to appear after the first Gulf War 15 years ago, infuriating Islamic extremists and the al-Qaeda terror network.

c.hughes@mirror.co.uk

 

[VegasGuy]

Sounds about right. There is a war going on over there right now. What did you expect for them to do, park a mobile home next to the high school?

-VG

 

[Fuckallyall]

Sounds about right. There is a war going on over there right now. What did you expect for them to do, park a mobile home next to the high school?

-VG

But doesn't this contraindicate the assertion that we are there temporarily as the president has stated from the beginning ?

 

[VegasGuy]

But doesn't this contraindicate the assertion that we are there temporarily as the president has stated from the beginning ?

No not in the slightest. Almost every government has an embassy in somebody elses country.

Secondly, listen carefully to what the president as commander in chief of the armed forces has said. Not once did he ever say we won't have a presence in Iraq. He talked about troop level reductions as far as armed conflict is conserned. That is about it.

If you didn't know, our presence is as permanent as it was for Russia, Germany, Japan, Bosnia, Europe, Cuba, the Falkland Islands and everywhere else we've been in a conflict. We even have an embassy in Iran. It is apart of something called diplomacy dawg. It's necessary.

-VG

 

[Greed]

yeah, diplomacy.

kick ass diplomacy.

 

[Fuckallyall]

No not in the slightest. Almost every government has an embassy in somebody elses country.

Secondly, listen carefully to what the president as commander in chief of the armed forces has said. Not once did he ever say we won't have a presence in Iraq. He talked about troop level reductions as far as armed conflict is conserned. That is about it.

If you didn't know, our presence is as permanent as it was for Russia, Germany, Japan, Bosnia, Europe, Cuba, the Falkland Islands and everywhere else we've been in a conflict. We even have an embassy in Iran. It is apart of something called diplomacy dawg. It's necessary.

-VG

Under your logic, we do not need another embassy. I say another because we already have an embassy within the green zone currently. The new one is far away from most other embassies and Baghdad city. Also, the president said from before we went in that American troops would not become a permanent fixture in Iraq. We went in there (obstensibly) to disarm Hussein of WMD's and get out. Then we needed to "Liberate" Iraq. Then we needed to "suppress" the "insurgents". Now we need to "rebuild" Iraq and spread "democracy". What I am saying is that America is being hypocritical. That hurts foreign affairs more than most of us know. And I do not like it.

 

[Greed]

i thought he said we wont be longer than necessary. is it his fault that no one in the media or opposition party forced him to define that.

he describes the war on terror as a generational battle and it seems like a natural extension that we would be over there for a generation.

makes sense to build more permanent bases. cost effective really.

personally, i never thought we would ever leave. it would be dumb in purely american empire sense to pass up the opportunity to turn iraq into what japan means to us in asia and what germany means to us in europe.

we'll be there for 50 years.

 

[Greed]

http://64.255.174.200/board/showthread.php?t=15999

 

[Fuckallyall]

http://64.255.174.200/board/showthread.php?t=15999

Good pull. Thanks. I fugured this is what we wanted to do, but I vehemently disagree with it. Democracies do not attack each other, but empires do. This is a way to war, not a way to prevent them.

 

[Greed]

Iraqis Think U.S. in Their Nation to Stay

Iraqis Think U.S. in Their Nation to Stay
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
20 minutes ago

The concrete goes on forever, vanishing into the noonday glare, 2 million cubic feet of it, a mile-long slab that's now the home of up to 120 U.S. helicopters, a "heli-park" as good as any back in the States.

At another giant base, al-Asad in Iraq's western desert, the 17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling American town, with a Burger King, Pizza Hut and a car dealership, stop signs, traffic regulations and young bikers clogging the roads.

At a third hub down south, Tallil, they're planning a new mess hall, one that will seat 6,000 hungry airmen and soldiers for chow.

Are the Americans here to stay? Air Force mechanic Josh Remy is sure of it as he looks around Balad.

"I think we'll be here forever," the 19-year-old airman from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., told a visitor to his base.

The Iraqi people suspect the same. Strong majorities tell pollsters they'd like to see a timetable for U.S. troops to leave, but believe Washington plans to keep military bases in their country.

The question of America's future in Iraq looms larger as the U.S. military enters the fourth year of its war here, waged first to oust President Saddam Hussein, and now to crush an Iraqi insurgency.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, interim prime minister, has said he opposes permanent foreign bases. A wide range of American opinion is against them as well. Such bases would be a "stupid" provocation, says Gen. Anthony Zinni, former U.S. Mideast commander and a critic of the original U.S. invasion.

But events, in explosive situations like Iraq's, can turn "no" into "maybe" and even "yes."

The Shiite Muslims, ascendant in Baghdad, might decide they need long-term U.S. protection against insurgent Sunni Muslims. Washington might take the political risks to gain a strategic edge — in its confrontation with next-door Iran, for example.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and other U.S. officials disavow any desire for permanent bases. But long-term access, as at other U.S. bases abroad, is different from "permanent," and the official U.S. position is carefully worded.

Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman on international security, told The Associated Press it would be "inappropriate" to discuss future basing until a new Iraqi government is in place, expected in the coming weeks.

Less formally, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked about "permanent duty stations" by a Marine during an Iraq visit in December, allowed that it was "an interesting question." He said it would have to be raised by the incoming Baghdad government, if "they have an interest in our assisting them for some period over time."

In Washington, Iraq scholar Phebe Marr finds the language intriguing. "If they aren't planning for bases, they ought to say so," she said. "I would expect to hear 'No bases.'"

Right now what is heard is the pouring of concrete.

In 2005-06, Washington has authorized or proposed almost $1 billion for U.S. military construction in Iraq, as American forces consolidate at Balad, known as Anaconda, and a handful of other installations, big bases under the old regime.

They have already pulled out of 34 of the 110 bases they were holding last March, said Maj. Lee English of the U.S. command's Base Working Group, planning the consolidation.

"The coalition forces are moving outside the cities while continuing to provide security support to the Iraqi security forces," English said.

The move away from cities, perhaps eventually accompanied by U.S. force reductions, will lower the profile of U.S. troops, frequent targets of roadside bombs on city streets. Officers at Al-Asad Air Base, 10 desert miles from the nearest town, say it hasn't been hit by insurgent mortar or rocket fire since October.

Al-Asad will become even more isolated. The proposed 2006 supplemental budget for Iraq operations would provide $7.4 million to extend the no-man's-land and build new security fencing around the base, which at 19 square miles is so large that many assigned there take the Yellow or Blue bus routes to get around the base, or buy bicycles at a PX jammed with customers.

The latest budget also allots $39 million for new airfield lighting, air traffic control systems and upgrades allowing al-Asad to plug into the Iraqi electricity grid — a typical sign of a long-term base.

At Tallil, besides the new $14 million dining facility, Ali Air Base is to get, for $22 million, a double perimeter security fence with high-tech gate controls, guard towers and a moat — in military parlance, a "vehicle entrapment ditch with berm."

Here at Balad, the former Iraqi air force academy 40 miles north of Baghdad, the two 12,000-foot runways have become the logistics hub for all U.S. military operations in Iraq, and major upgrades began last year.

Army engineers say 31,000 truckloads of sand and gravel fed nine concrete-mixing plants on Balad, as contractors laid a $16 million ramp to park the Air Force's huge C-5 cargo planes; an $18 million ramp for workhorse C-130 transports; and the vast, $28 million main helicopter ramp, the length of 13 football fields, filled with attack, transport and reconnaissance helicopters.

Turkish builders are pouring tons more concrete for a fourth ramp beside the runways, for medical-evacuation and other aircraft on alert. And $25 million was approved for other "pavement projects," from a special road for munitions trucks to a compound for special forces.

The chief Air Force engineer here, Lt. Col. Scott Hoover, is also overseeing two crucial projects to add to Balad's longevity: equipping the two runways with new permanent lighting, and replacing a weak 3,500-foot section of one runway.

Once that's fixed, "we're good for as long as we need to run it," Hoover said. Ten years? he was asked. "I'd say so."

Away from the flight lines, among traffic jams and freshly planted palms, life improves on 14-square-mile Balad for its estimated 25,000 personnel, including several thousand American and other civilians.

They've inherited an Olympic-sized pool and a chandeliered cinema from the Iraqis. They can order their favorite Baskin-Robbins flavor at ice cream counters in five dining halls, and cut-rate Fords, Chevys or Harley-Davidsons, for delivery at home, at a PX-run "dealership." On one recent evening, not far from a big 24-hour gym, airmen hustled up and down two full-length, lighted outdoor basketball courts as F-16 fighters thundered home overhead.

"Balad's a fantastic base," Brig. Gen. Frank Gorenc, the Air Force's tactical commander in Iraq, said in an interview at his headquarters here.

Could it host a long-term U.S. presence?

"Eventually it could," said Gorenc, commander of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing. "But there's no commitment to any of the bases we operate, until somebody tells me that."

In the counterinsurgency fight, Balad's central location enables strike aircraft to reach targets in minutes. And in the broader context of reinforcing the U.S. presence in the oil-rich Mideast, Iraq bases are preferable to aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, said a longtime defense analyst.

"Carriers don't have the punch," said Gordon Adams of Washington's George Washington University. "There's a huge advantage to land-based infrastructure. At the level of strategy it makes total sense to have Iraq bases."

A U.S. congressional study cited another, less discussed use for possible Iraq bases: to install anti-ballistic defenses in case Iran fires missiles.

American bases next door could either deter or provoke Iran, noted Paul D. Hughes, a key planner in the early U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Overall, however, this retired Army colonel says American troops are unwanted in the Middle East. With long-term bases in Iraq, "We'd be inviting trouble," Hughes said.

"It's a stupid idea and clearly politically unacceptable," Zinni, a former Central Command chief, said in a Washington interview. "It would damage our image in the region, where people would decide that this" — seizing bases — "was our original intent."

Among Iraqis, the subject is almost too sensitive to discuss.

"People don't like bases," veteran politician Adnan Pachachi, a member of the new Parliament, told the AP. "If bases are absolutely necessary, if there's a perceived threat ... but I don't think even Iran will be a threat."

If long-term basing is, indeed, on the horizon, "the politics back here and the politics in the region say, 'Don't announce it,'" Adams said in Washington. That's what's done elsewhere, as with the quiet U.S. basing of spy planes and other aircraft in the United Arab Emirates.

Army and Air Force engineers, with little notice, have worked to give U.S. commanders solid installations in Iraq, and to give policymakers options. From the start, in 2003, the first Army engineers rolling into Balad took the long view, laying out a 10-year plan envisioning a move from tents to today's living quarters in air-conditioned trailers, to concrete-and-brick barracks by 2008.

In early 2006, no one's confirming such next steps, but a Balad "master plan," details undisclosed, is nearing completion, a possible model for al-Asad, Tallil and a fourth major base, al-Qayyarah in Iraq's north.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — This report is based on interviews with U.S. military engineers and others before and during the writer's two weeks as an embedded reporter at major U.S. bases in Iraq.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060320...JBI2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

 

[Greed]

http://64.255.174.200/board/showthread.php?t=15999

i wish i knew what this thread was.

dumb asshole deleting threads at random "by mistake."