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US keeps its Iraqi bases
covered
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Now that the Bush administration
has decided to sharply accelerate the transfer of full
sovereignty to an Iraqi government, why does it not
invite the United Nations to help with the transition?
At this point, an invitation appears logical. At a
minimum, it would give the occupation greater
international legitimacy and encourage other countries
to contribute both troops and more reconstruction
assistance, easing Washington's burden.
Moreover, the world body has much more recent
experience than the US in governing traumatized
societies around the world. It would also go far to heal
the wounds opened so painfully between Washington and
its western European allies as the administration of
President George W Bush rushed headlong to war earlier
this year, at times showing its general contempt for
"Old Europe".
The move would clearly boost
Bush's re-election chances. Two-thirds or more of US
voters, according to a string of polls dating back a
full year, have consistently supported giving the UN
control over post-war Iraq. After all, the costs of the
occupation in US blood and treasure represent by far the
greatest threat to Bush's chances next November.
So why then, the reluctance to ask the world
body for help? Several answers suggest themselves, not
least of which is pride. Even though the administration
has made a series of U-turns in its management of the
occupation, it steadfastly refuses to acknowledge that
previous policies might have been mistaken. Policy
changes of 180 degrees are instead described as
"mid-course corrections". Bush hawks also no doubt fear
that giving the UN responsibility for administering Iraq
would create a highly undesirable precedent for future
US military action.
Then there is the conviction
that the world body is fundamentally incompetent,
although it would be very difficult to top the policy
zigzags and confusion generated by the excruciatingly
isolated Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), as
pointed out by Italy's former representative to the CPA,
who resigned abruptly in exasperation earlier this
month.
Of course, all those contracts to big US
companies amounting to many billions of dollars might
also play a role. A UN administration could embarrass
Bush by confirming the relationship between contracts
and political contributions or even force some of the
deals to be cancelled.
But while most or all
these arguments might be contributing to the
administration's obstinacy, perhaps the most powerful
one is the least discussed. Is it possible that the most
compelling reason for the administration to retain
control of the transition is its determination to build
permanent military bases in Iraq, bases that it knows
would under no circumstances be approved by
veto-wielding potential strategic rivals on the UN
Security Council, namely China, Russia and, according to
some neo-conservatives, France.
In other words,
by retaining exclusive control over the transition, does
the administration believe that its chances of
negotiating a permanent military presence in Iraq with a
successor government are much greater than if the
Security Council were given a say in the process?
Since the New York Times reported in April that
the administration was planning to establish and
maintain as many as four military bases in Iraq for an
extended period of time, much has been written about
radical redeployments of US forces in Europe and Asia.
The changes, it has been said, would enhance the forces'
ability to strike quickly, lethally and, if necessary,
pre-emptively along an "arc of instability" that not
coincidentally covers both key oil-producing areas from
the Gulf of Guinea across the Persian Gulf and into
Central Asia and critical points that could be used to
contain Russia and China from the Caucasus across to
East Asia and the western Pacific.
According to
these plans, which are now being discussed formally with
affected allies, much of the US military based in
Germany and the rest of Western Europe during the Cold
War is to be shifted to central Europe and the Balkans,
closer to the oil-producing-and-transiting Caucasus and
Middle East.
Since September 11, 2001,
Washington has also established bases in Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan that it used in attacking Afghanistan, bases
that it shows no sign of leaving. Similarly, forces in
Japan and South Korea might be partly redeployed, while
Washington has made clear its interest in re-acquiring
access to bases in the Philippines and Australia. Last
week's visit by a US warship to Vietnam - the first
since 1975 - also suggested a renewed interest in that
country, which borders both China and the potentially
oil-rich South China Sea.
As for the Middle East
and the Gulf countries themselves, major shifts - most
notably the abandonment of a major air force base in
Saudi Arabia and the redeployment of US warplanes to
Qatar - have also been under way. But Qatar and even
Kuwait, which has acted as a de facto military base for
Washington since 1990, could not substitute for the kind
of strategic depth and flexibility offered by the four
bases identified by the Times as those to which the
administration wants permanent access.
They are:
Baghdad international airport; Talil Air base near
Nasariyah; a base in the western desert near Syria; and
Bashur air field in the Kurdish region near the
convergence of the borders of Turkey, Iran and Iraq and
only 500 kilometers, as F-16s fly, from Baku, the
capital of oil-rich Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea.
Pentagon Chief Donald Rumsfeld denied that
Washington had plans to build those bases when the Times
article was published. But since then, he and his chief
aides have been remarkably coy about how long US forces
intend to remain in Iraq. And on his recent emergency
trip to Washington, where it was decided to accelerate
the transition timetable, CPA chief L Paul Bremer
suggested that whoever takes power in Iraq will
undoubtedly want to sign a "SOFA" - a Status of Forces
Agreement that governs the relationship between the US
military and host countries.
Despite Rumsfeld's
denial, Tom Donnelly, a military specialist at the
American Enterprise Institute with close links to
Pentagon planners, published an article in the
neo-conservative Weekly Standard that took Rumsfeld to
task for not "fess[ing] up" that bases in Iraq were
entirely consistent with changes in Washington's global
military posture. Iraqi airfields in particular, he
wrote, "are ideally located for deployments throughout
the region ... There's plenty of space, not only for
installations but for training," he said, adding
confidently, "And they are enough removed from
Mesopotamia that they would not be 'imperial' irritants
to the majority of Iraqis."
In September,
according to Jessica Tuchman Matthews, president of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who
participated in a delegation of foreign policy
specialists the Pentagon took to Kuwait and Iraq after
the war, the administration's future basing plans were a
major mystery. "We were told [by senior military
briefers] in Kuwait that we needed $2 billion to improve
housing for US troops for, quote, 'enduring' bases in
Iraq, but I did not get to ask what 'enduring' meant,"
she said.
In January 2003, she added, "a senior
[administration] official" had told her that "we're
going to move our forces out of Saudi Arabia into Iraq",
an account echoed by other sources at the same time.
"The conquest of Iraq will not be a minor event in
history," noted George Friedman, chairman of the
Stratfor.com private intelligence agency in February.
"It will represent the introduction of a new imperial
power to the Middle East and a redefinition of regional
geo-politics based on that power."
Building
bases in Iraq is consistent with the neo-conservatives'
long-held argument for invading Iraq in order to both
"remake the face" of the Middle East and to transform
and enhance Washington's global military posture to
ensure its domination of key strategic resources. In the
words of a 2000 study by the Project for the New
American Century, such a move would "project sufficient
power to enforce Pax Americana". Global peace and
stability "demand American political leadership rather
than that of the United Nations", asserted the report,
whose charter members include Rumsfeld, Vice President
Dick Cheney and half a dozen other top national security
officials in the Bush administration.
(Inter
Press Service)
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