Qatar: The Pentagon's Persian Gulf Pentagon
In 1996, although it had no air force of its own, the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar built Al Udeid Air Base at a cost of more than $1 billion. The goal: attracting the U.S. military. In September 2001, U.S. aircraft began to operate out of the facility. By 2002, tanks, armored vehicles, dozens of warehouses, communications and computing equipment, and thousands of troops were based at and around Al Udeid. In 2005, the Qatari government spent almost $400 million to build a cutting-edge regional air operations center.
Today, Qatar is all but indispensable to the U.S. military. Just recently, for example, Central Command redeployed 750 personnel from its Tampa, Florida headquarters to its new forward headquarters at Al Udeid to test its "staff's ability to seamlessly transition command and control of operations… in the event of a crisis in the CENTCOM area of responsibility or a natural disaster in Florida."
Bahrain Base's and Kuwait's Subways
In nearby Bahrain -- a tiny kingdom of 750,000 people -- the U.S. stations up to 3,000 personnel, in addition to regular visits by the crews of Navy ships that spend time there. Between 2001-2009, the Navy awarded $203 million in construction contracts for military projects in the country. One big winner over that span has been the engineering and construction firm Contrack International. It received more than $50 million in U.S. government funds for such projects as building two "multi-story facilities for the U.S. Navy" complete with state-of-the-art communication interfaces and exterior landscaping.
Saudi Base Building and Jordan's U.S. Army Training Complex
According to a recent Congressional Research Service report, "From 1950 through 2006, Saudi Arabia purchased and received from the United States weapons, military equipment, and related services through Foreign Military Sales (FMS) worth over $62.7 billion and foreign military construction services (FMCS) worth over $17.1 billion." Between 1946 and 2007, the Saudis also benefited from almost $295 million in foreign assistance funding from the U.S. military.
"The Pentagon has also invested in Jordanian military infrastructure. Between 2001-2009, the Army awarded $86 million in contracts for Jordanian construction projects. One major beneficiary was again Archirodon which, between 2006-2008, worked on the construction of the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC) -- a state-of-the-art military and counter-terrorism training facility owned and operated by the Jordanian government but built, in part, under a $70 million U.S. Army contract. In 2009, Archirodon was awarded two additional contracts for $729,000 and $400,000, by the Air Force, for unspecified work in Jordan.
And on and on...
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175159/tomgram:_nick_turse,_out_of_iraq,_into_the_gulfThe middle east is the pentagon's home away from home.
"Cost of U.S. bases in Iraq (which Congress has mandated as not "permanent") and in Afghanistan (which the Pentagon refers to as "enduring"): Unknown. In a prestigious engineering magazine in late 2003, Lt. Col. David Holt, the Army engineer "tasked with facilities development" in Iraq, was already speaking proudly of "several billion dollars" being sunk into base construction. According to the Washington Post, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) claims $2 billion went into "military construction" in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2004-2006; another $1.7 billion was approved by Congress for 2007. And the Pentagon is still building. For fiscal 2008, $738.8 million was requested "for 33 critical construction projects for Iraq and Afghanistan." (When it comes to base construction, these figures are undoubtedly undercounts.)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/engelhardt
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