What we need is the biggest goddam embassy complex anywhere in the world, for our new bestest friend forever, Iraq! They just love us half to death, over there, sometimes, all the way!
And I hope he gloats. He’s that dumb, he just might.
Congress defunded that quite some time ago.
Um? As recently as last spring they were still arguing about it:
Now as far as I can parse all this, it means that as of March 2006:
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the military was still doing a lot of large-scale base construction in Iraq, and the Administration was still seeking (and obtaining) large-scale funding to support it;
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the Administration was stating that the Iraq bases were not designed for permanent US occupation;
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Congress forbade the use of funds for bargaining with the Iraqi government about base construction;
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some Congresscritters sponsored a bill that would officially make it contrary to US policy to have permanent bases in Iraq (but I don’t know what happened to the bill subsequently);
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Congress wants more information and oversight concerning base construction because they’re concerned that permanent base planning and construction may be going on clandestinely;
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the House Appropriations Committee nixed any more spending on facilities construction in Iraq until they got more info on regional base planning;
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the Pentagon was about to provide the Committee with the requested data on regional base planning, but it might not have contained detailed information on plans for Afghanistan and Iraq.
Got all that? Yeah, me neither. ISTM that all we can say for certain is: Congress definitely doesn’t want to fund permanent military base construction for US forces in Iraq, but they are not entirely sure from the information provided by the military and the Administration whether they are funding it, and it is not entirely clear whether and how they’re going to be able to find out for certain.
So I think the situation is more complicated, and more debatable, than your straightforward assertion about Congress having defunded permanent base construction in Iraq would suggest.
Unless you have more recent detailed information that settles the question definitively? Because I freely admit that the whole thing looks to me like a fairly impenetrable political and bureaucratic can of worms where nobody’s really clear on exactly what is happening, or if they are, they aren’t telling.
How do you build something that size “clandestinely”? You could do it in Siberia, I suppose, but not in a densely populated country like Iraq. Al-Jazeera, at least, will know about every base going up, from the groundbreaking.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. It’s not the construction that’s clandestine, it’s the (possible) intention to retain the bases for permanent or long-term US military use instead of transferring them to the Iraqis in the near-term future.
Oh, swell. State of the art, top of the line military bases, built by us for use by AlQ and/or its Shia counterparts. Peachy.
From some searching, it would appear the 12 enduring bases is a concept that was scuttled some time in early 2005. I’m surprised this escaped by attention. It’s time for a learning opportunity, everyone!
Now, instead of 12 “enduring bases” there are four “super bases” planned, with two of them already built – Al Asad Airbase and Balad Air Base. I recommend reading up on these – they’re basically massive Green Zones exported outside of Baghdad, or like a plopped down American city. From 2006 articles it appears Asad holds 17,000 troops, Balad 20,000. They have bus routes, town centers, theaters, business districts filled with fast food and electronic equipment stores…
Bolding mine. That made me chuckle. Contingency operating bases…has a nice ring to it.
Some other stuff in the article is also sorta amusing, like where the official attempts to say that these longer lived bases are really part of the withdrawal plan. Well, it’s been two years and if anything it seems like we’re going in the opposite direction. :smack:
Bullshit.
I mean, you’re right – there’s no way there’s going to be enough votes to over ride a veto. Like I said earlier, I also really doubt the GOP is going to see a mass defection in the magical month of September either. Maybe I’m wrong and the Dem leadership will blow us all away with their brilliant insight and planning. Maybe the Swedish bikini team’s bus will break down in front of my house. Anything is possible.
My point is, you can’t just brush this off as the Dems not being able to do anything. The Dems fucked up big. They have a razor thin majority, yes, but there are options other than a complete rout in the face of “Mr. 28%.” They should’ve cut the retarded pork, added timelines and actual benchmarks and sent it to Bush. He’d veto it, of course. Send it back into his face again, and again, and again. Make a political spectacle out of this, force the issue in the media – why does Bush want to veto what the American people want? Why are the GOP Congress critters enabling him? They had time to work with this. There are other ideas out there too, but that’s my personal favorite. Then of course there’s having balls and just cutting funding, full stop. Doesn’t need the votes, just do nothing. No money, no war. But that’s only if things get desperate.
But no. Nothing. No fight. They collapsed like a house of cards.
What happens in September when we’re faced with this same situation and I’m right regarding the GOP’s resolve? I’m guessing KBR will be extremely pleased.
If the Dems pull a miracle in September I’ll be the first to prostrate myself before Pelosi and Reid – well, after all the military families I suppose.
If not, the Dems just bought the war.
From Sept, 2006:
But John, what does that tell us that we didn’t know before? Where are the actual provisions for Congressional oversight for base planning or construction to make sure the bases won’t be permanent, or the actual denial of funding for continuing construction?
AFAICT, all your link tells us is that “lawmakers have called on President George W. Bush to make a definitive statement that the United States has no such plans [for permanent military bases]”.
We already knew that Congress doesn’t want to be funding permanent bases in Iraq. We seem to be no closer than we were before to determining whether Congress actually is funding permanent bases in Iraq, or how they can investigate or oversee the base-planning issue.
Maybe I should have included the 2nd paragraph, too:
The restrictions = no funds for permanent bases.
All I said above, which you seemed to object to, was that Congress defunded them. But the simple fact is that these bases are Bush’s baby, and if he wants to finagle some funds for them he probably can. But he can’t make them “permanent” once he leaves office, and he seems to be the only one who wants them.
How do we know? I already read the second paragraph in your linked article, and I still don’t see in it any specific claim about whether or how Congress is obtaining any effective oversight of base planning or any effective denial of funds for base constructions.
As far as I can see from the article, the “restrictions” in question consist of nothing more than Congress saying to Bush “We want you to tell us what your plans are for bases in Iraq! In the meantime, here’s some more money.”
Well, you said that in response to BG’s question “Are they still planning to build those bases?”
Which seemed to imply (although perhaps it wasn’t what you meant) that you thought that Congress had actually taken some action to effectively prevent the continuation of their construction. Which I don’t think has yet been convincingly demonstrated.
Easiest thing in the world. Just pass some money for military assistance to Iraq, and use the money to build permanent Iraqi bases. Then bribe the Iraqis to lease “their” bases to the US.
Like I posted upthread, there are already two city sized bases, even built like cities, which hold a total of ~40,000 troops combined. They have a substantial price tag, far beyond most other bases that dot the country. They’re built to last.
I was wondering about about the other two planned super bases of Tallil in the south and the northern base in either Irbil or Qayyarah. From what I can find the northern deal didn’t go through and the Tallil operation has been stunted greatly, although it is still quite sizable. So I guess that’s good.
This 2006 article makes for an interesting read. It also has some information on the bases slated for upgrade at the bottom, two being the superbases at Al Asad and Balad.
Hey, maybe they’re right! This is all just a big misunderstanding, really. But isn’t it a permanent base if, you know, we never actually leave and hand over the keys? How do we leave when the Dems roll over and show their belly? How do we leave when the MSM stands firm? How do we leave when 30% of the country thinks everything is swell? How do we leave when the military-industrial complex that Ike warned us about has its tentacles all inside of Congress?
Ugh. I could take the news of the Dems collapsing. I could take the news of us going through a second escalation okay too. But both, together, in a single day, makes me woozy.
Look, Bush can call them anything he wants. He can call them the W Memorial Eternal Bases, but once he leaves office all bets are off. It’s crystal clear that no one in Congress wants these bases, so what’s the point?
Well, I thought the point was to try to figure out whether “they are still planning to build those bases”. I mean, that was the question that BrainGlutton asked.
You seem to be saying instead that even if the current Administration is still committed to enduring bases in Iraq, it’s irrelevant because in practical terms, they won’t “endure” past 2008. Which may well be true, but is not quite the same issue.
Shit, just with the money gone missing, they could build an exact replica of Salt Lake City, complete with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! What are we talking, a few billion here? Couch change.
He also asked if there was any update and said he hadn’t heard anything since 2004. That was an update from 2006.
I’d say it’s misleading, at best, to say that Bush is building permanent bases in Iraq. He’s building bases, and maybe he thinks they’re permanent, but no one in Congress thinks they are.
One other thing to keep in mind: A person is being hopelessly naive if he or she thinks we are not going to have a substantial troop presence in Iraq for some time after Bush leaves office. I would be shocked if the next president, even if (s)he is a Democrat, gets us out of there completely during his/her first term in office. We don’t need (and shouldn’t want) “permanent” bases in Iraq, but we do need bases that we can use for quite some time. That is the sad truth of the matter.