Have you heard that the United States is no longer engaged in a global War on Terror? No, really! We have a new and improved product for sale, limited time only: the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. G-SAVE bargain price, only $5 billion a month, give or take a couple of countries (no nukes included in sale price).
But seriously, if we're not worried about the war on terror anymore, and Iraq is all free and democratic and what not (or will be as soon as they finish up that pesky constitution), then why is it that we are building permanent bases in Iraq?
Sam Graham-Felsen (via the Light of Reason) describes how:
Bush has publicly denied that the United States has permanent designs on Iraq, and on February 17, 2005, Donald Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "I can assure you that we have no intention at the present time of putting permanent bases in Iraq." For all the Bush administration has done to verbally dispel notions that it seeks permanent bases, it continues to plan and construct bases that are built to last, well, permanently.
However, the claim of impermanence is not wholly reassuring:
There is a spectrum of opinion on the exact nature of these bases. "Permanent," of course, is a dirty word in Washington, and even the most anti-war politicians are tentative to designate them as such. Defense expert John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org believes the bases lack components of official "permanency" -- such as reinforced steel and ground-level concrete slabs--but admits that military has been deliberately vague and hesitant about releasing detailed information. "Look, if they say they're building these bases as part of a withdrawal plan, that's because the withdrawal plan is victory. And we're not even close to victory, which is exactly why they're building these bases," Pike told me. "We're going to be there by the end of Jeb's second term."
My favorite quote comes from Larry Diamond:
And Larry Diamond, Hoover fellow and former advisor to Paul Bremer, has bluntly declared that the bases are permanent. This past February, he told a UCLA audience: "[W]e could declare ... that we have no permanent military designs on Iraq and we will not seek permanent military bases in Iraq. This one statement would do an enormous amount to undermine the suspicion that we have permanent imperial intentions in Iraq. We aren't going to do that. And the reason we're not going to do that is because we are building permanent military bases in Iraq."
Ah yes, that liberal bastion, the Hoover Institution.
Posted by binky at August 1, 2005 09:27 PM | TrackBack | Posted to International Affairs