Dodd: No Permanent Bases in Iraq

Great to ask the question. (0.00 / 0)

However, in addition to folowing up with where our military assets to "stabilize the region" should be, you might keep in mind that the Pentagon has modified the verbiage again.
Their position now is that we will have no permanent bases (used to be called "enduring") in Iraq because NONE of our bases on foreign soil are to be considered as permanent.  We don't "do" occupations.  Besides, even the bases here at home aren't permanent as is evidenced by the BRAC process.  America's foreign bases are in their host countries by invitation and can be asked to depart at any time.  However when that was recently suggested in regard to Iraq, the answer came back that our presence in Iraq is at the request of and authorized by the United Nations.  And, presumably, the UN will continue to authorize the U.S. military effort as long as the mayhem continues. 

I actually don't know what question to ask to leave them with no wiggle room.  If you'll recall, there were actually few troops to take out of Saudi Arabia; it was mostly equipment and munitions that were pre-deployed.  That stuff has been relocated to Al Udeid Air base in Kuwait. And then there's the Southern Command HQ that's being built in Qatar.

It's my impression that missile defense and monitoring installetions on four or so bases will only require about 20,000 technicians and specialists, as long as the perimeters of the bases are "secure" in the sense that they're not being shelled on a regular basis. 

That's the security that Iraqi forces were supposed to provide but haven't been successful in doing.  Also, there's the matter of provisioning these installations since the convoys are a regular target of the IEDs.

Given that boost phase missile interceptors need to respond within 50 seconds of a target missile's lift off and given that submarine-based interceptors seem incapable of meeting that requirement, it seems that land-based missile defense installations located as close to whence such missiles might take off are preferred.  (That's why the Russians have declared that the proposal to position such missiles in Poland to counteract hostile missiles from Iran is not credible.  The distance is too great).

The problem with asking if there are plans to do such and such is that the responded can always say s/he has no plans and know that, since the Pentagon's plans are classified, s/he can't be talking about them anyway.  There's a good reason why most prior presidential campaigns signed on to the position that partisanship stops at the nation's shores--i.e. they didn't want to talk about our relations with foreign nations.  That worked fine during the Cold War since it made sense that we didn't want to demonstrate disunity to our enemies.  But now we have no enemies, right?  So, why not discuss what we are going to do with all our friends?

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by: hannah @ Mon Apr 23, 2007 at 07:42:27 AM CDT

BTW (0.00 / 0)

Senator Clinton's statement is entirely with my analysis when she states:

..we do envision a vastly reduced residual force to remain for some limited period of time to train Iraqi troops ... to provide logistical support for counter-terrorism missions [and] to protect the Kurds if necessary...

...that does not mean we would have a permanent force. I am absolutely clear, we do not plan a permanent occupation or permanent bases.

"vastly reduced" certainly applies to 20,000 from a high of 170,000.
"limited period of time" is a given since all time is by definition limited and nothing is for ever
"to train Iraqi troops" for what?  This has always puzzled me.  Saddam Hussein had a 300,000 man Army when we invaded.  Are we suggesting that our invasion was a success because they weren't sufficiently trained? 
"logistical support for counter-terrorism missions" sounds an awful lot like radar installations, missile defense installations to counter "terrorist states"  (Syria, Iran, Russia, China, North Korea?)
"protect the Kurds" from whom?  From Turkey, our friend that's being harassed by incursions which we haven't been able to prevent?

"permanent force" Rumsfeld explained long ago that unlike in Germany (where we've been for sixty years), the technical troops would be on short rotations and not be bringing their families.
"permanent bases" I addressed in prior comment.

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by: hannah @ Mon Apr 23, 2007 at 08:01:24 AM CDT

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