U.S. military plans to set up four permannet bases in Iraq

WASHINGTON, April 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The U.S. defense department (Pentagon) is currently planning the establishment of four permanent military bases in Iraq, a leading U.S. newspaper quoted senior U.S. administration officials as saying Sunday, April 20.

“There will be some kind of a long-term defense relationship with a new Iraq, similar to Afghanistan," one senior administration official told The New York Time.

"The scope of that has yet to be defined, whether it will be full-up operational bases, smaller forward operating bases or just plain access."

But other senior officials, who all requested anonymity, told the Times about maintaining perhaps four key bases in Iraq that could be used in the future: one at the international airport just outside Baghdad; at Tallil, near Nasiriyah in the south; at an isolated airstrip called H-1 in the western desert, along the old oil pipeline that runs to Jordan; and at the Bashur air field in the Kurdish north.

“Whether that can be arranged depends on relations between Washington and whoever takes control in Baghdad,” one official told the daily.

“If the ties are close enough, the military relationship could become one of the most striking developments in a strategic revolution now playing out across the Middle East and Southwest Asia, from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean,” he added, referring implicitly to the U.S. incessant bids to impose its hegemony on the world resources.

“The attacks of Sept. 11 changed more than just the terrorism picture," the official added. “On Sept. 11, we woke up and found ourselves in Central Asia. We found ourselves in Eastern Europe as never before, as the gateway to Central Asia and the Middle East.”

A military foothold in Iraq would be felt across the border in Syria, and, in combination with the continuing U.S. presence in Afghanistan, it would virtually surround Iran with a new web of U.S. influence, the daily said.

Col. John Dobbins, commander of Tallil Forward Air Base, said the Air Force plan envisioned that U.S. troops “will stay in Iraq for an amount of time.”

“That amount of time, obviously, is an unknown,” he added.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey

In a particularly important development, officials said the United States was likely to reduce U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as well.

As for Turkey, the new military bases would, in effect, help the U.S. reduce its independence on its bases in Turkey, whose parliament denied the Pentagon access to bases and supply lines for the war on Iraq.

The United States has withdrawn nearly all of its 50 attack and support airplanes at the Incirlik air base, from which they flew patrols over Iraq's north for more than a decade.

The military is already using these bases to support operations against the remnants of the toppled Iraqi regime, to deliver supplies and relief aid and for reconnaissance patrols.