We're Staying!

Unless the Iraqis Force the United States Out, The Evidence Shows the US Isn't Leaving

by Kevin Zeese
www.dissidentvoice.org
April 24, 2006

The message is clear. Indeed, it's gigantic for all Iraqis and the entire world to see: a 100-acre compound -- ten times the size of the typical US embassy, the size of 80 football fields, six times larger than the UN, the size of Vatican City. The US Embassy Compound, in the middle of Baghdad -- the center for US domination of the Middle East and its resources.

The compound towers above the Tigris River like a modern fortress. It will have its own sources of power and water, and will sit in the heart of Baghdad. If there is any thought that the U.S. is planning on leaving Iraq, the new embassy should make it clear “We're staying!”

The growing skyline of the US embassy in Baghdad is only the most recent indication that the U.S. has no intention of leaving. President Bush has already told us we're their until the end of his tenure.

More important than words, building “permanent” military bases in Iraq reinforces the message of the huge embassy. The DoD does not like to use the word “permanent” even for our bases in Germany and Korea. Euphemisms like “enduring bases” or “contingency operating bases” are used. They're less likely to cause further anti-American unrest in Iraq than “permanent”.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations for the coalition in Iraq, told the Chicago Tribune in March 2004: “This is a blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East.” Zoltan Grossman, a geographer at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, told the Christian Science Monitor that since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the US has established a string of 35 new bases between Poland and Pakistan, not including the Iraqi bases. He maintains the US is establishing a “sphere of influence” in that region. The Monitor also reports that Joseph Gerson, author of The Sun Never Sets: Confronting the Network of Foreign U.S. Military Bases, says the war and bases aim at maintaining US control over the Middle East with its massive oil resources.

The plan entails construction of long-lasting facilities in Iraq. The bases will include barracks and offices built of concrete blocks, rather than metal trailers and tents. The buildings are designed to withstand direct mortar strikes. Initial funding was provided in the $82 billion supplemental appropriations bill approved by Congress in May 2005.
-continued-