Aljazeera.com, 04 January 2006
As PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH announced an end to the U.S.’s funding to “rebuild” IRAQ, contracts were being made to build a $1 billion U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government offices, the U.S. military command and some Western embassies.
An article on Mirror.co.uk states that Washington plans to make its future Baghdad Embassy “more secure than the Pentagon”. The fortified complex will be protected by 15ft blast walls, surface-to-air missiles as well as huge barracks for U.S. Marines to protect what will be the U.S.’s biggest and most secure building overseas. The complex will also include bunkers for use during U.S. air strikes, and about 300 houses for consular and military officials.
“Plans for the embassy building are being kept behind closed doors because of the terrorist threat, “an American official in the Middle East was quoted as saying. "It will be more secure than The Pentagon because it will be under constant threat from attack."
A Kuwait-based construction firm has already been awarded $300 million of the embassy deal. Several other Middle Eastern and American building companies are bidding for the remaining budget. Funding will probably come from IRAQ‘s oil revenues channeled into rebuilding the war-torn country.
The building is in effect an imperial seat of power, which will be built in IRAQ alongside four massive military superbases the U.S. is building around the Iraqi capital. Washington has many “secret' military bases in several Gulf states, including Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. The huge desert bases, that include airstrips and aircraft hangars, are up to 20 miles square and are not shown on civilian maps. The world began to know about them after the first Gulf War 15 years ago.
The secret plans reinforce views that Washington wants to keep a firm foothold in IRAQ for many years, enabling itself to maintain permanent bases and establish a colonial government in exactly the same way that Britain ran Egypt and controlled the Suez Canal.
An Iraqi security source said: "The plans for the embassy building will make it the largest and best protected diplomatic building overseas for the United States…. You may as well move the Pentagon to Iraq. It will be amazingly secure but it also flies in the face of claims America 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 U.S. is here to stay for the duration," the official added.
The news comes despite suggestions by Defense Secretary DONALD RUMSFELD that the United States will reduce the number of its forces in IRAQ to 153,000. The current number is 158,000 soldiers. (More than 2,100 American troops died in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led INVASION. IRAQI DEATHS are put at more than 30,000.)
The support for the WAR is waning in many countries that sent troops to IRAQ. Last month, the number of occupation forces dwindled when Ukraine and Bulgaria completed the withdrawal of their soldiers. British Prime Minister TONY BLAIR has also suggested that UK forces could start leaving IRAQ this May. The withdrawals deal a major blow to BUSH, who is already facing mounting pressure at home and abroad over his handling of the WAR.
Behind the allegations by the BUSH administration about its plans for an exit strategy, from the President’s claims of leaving IRAQ once” victory” is achieved to Senator John McCain’s plea to send more forces to Representative John Murtha’s call for an immediate withdrawal, there is a range of assumptions that need to be examined.
Consider a simple example, a report released last October by the Strategic Studies Institute at the Army War College, entitled “Precedents, Variables, and Options in Planning a U.S. Military Disengagement Strategy from IRAQ,” details everything in the war-torn country from ways to achieve political stability to how to define victory there. The sixty-seven-page report also explains the historically problematic process of carrying out an exit strategy following military intervention, the failures of previous international attempts to impose democracy, and the difficulty of measuring the political legitimacy of a new government. It concludes that while the U.S. could devise an exit strategy that leaves IRAQ better off than before the INVASION, “remarkably little room exists for error, ideological dogmatism, or ignorance about the nature of the multiple problems associated with such an undertaking.”
Obviously nothing of the conditions the U.S. says could pave the way for a withdrawal could take place soon. Washington didn’t achieve any of the goals it claimed were the reasons for the illegal INVASION. Analysts predict that last month's parliamentary election won't lead to a stable, democratic government, but would rather ignite a civil war in the country. Also Iraqi security forces need more time to be able to secure their country.
However, some political analysts believe that Washington won’t be able to stay long in IRAQ as the Iraqi resistance is growing, and the Iraqis increasingly want occupation forces out of their country. So the U.S. won’t be able to have a permanent place to park its troops in the Middle East. It will also fail in making its oil companies control or exploit IRAQ’s oilfields for long, because, of course, the occupation did not create a “friendly” democratic government. In fact, some critics say that, with a Shia-dominated government, the U.S. created an ally of Iran instead of an American ally.
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Citation: "The U.S. digging in for a long stay in Iraq," Aljazeera.com, 04 January 2006.
Original URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=10349
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