The point is that I have this information and I am cross-referencing with a detailed knowledge of US strategic thinking and a history of US military engagement, at least in the last half century. You can choose to be willfully ignorant of these factors, but it is quite obvious the US plans to use Iraq as a means of projecting its influence across the Middle East. This doesn’t necessarily have to invalidate the goal or the reasons you support the Iraq War. But I think you are being willfully ignorant to not understand the nature of US military and strategic planning.

Ben P

“Is this a swap for the Saudi bases?” asked Army Brig. Gen. Robert Pollman, chief engineer for base construction in Iraq. “I don’t know. … When we talk about enduring bases here, we’re talking about the present operation, not in terms of America’s global strategic base. But this makes sense. It makes a lot of logical sense.”

Now U.S. engineers are focusing on constructing 14 “enduring bases,” long-term encampments for the thousands of American troops expected to serve in Iraq for at least two years.

My emphasis.

I guess the point is that if you are planning on having a sizeable troop presence in Iraq for the up to 4 years suggested by soru, the bases will be built as if they are permanent, not temporary.

I don’t suppose there is a design they work to whereby the bases will look significantly different depending on whether the plan is they remain for 4, 8, 12, or 16 years.

What did you expect? Tents and a mobile burger van?

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-07-30-voa9.cfm

I assume that base one of the special biodegradable bases, not permanent?

soru

No. 1, from globalsecurity.org

No. 2, from the Christian Science Monitor

No. 3, a second link from global security with much more detailed info

No. 4, from the NY Sun, a decidely pro-Iraq War paper

This final source is most interesting in that it comes from a relatively right wing forecasting site that quotes extensively from Stratfor, which is – bar none – the premier game in town in terms of this kind of “strategic forecasting” game. I’d subscribe, but it costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 dollars a year to do so. Anyway, Here is link No. #5

Here is an extensive quote from Stratfor via this profutures.com website I link to above. I think this is absolutely the reason the US went to war. Its worth quoting at length:

Stratfor.com Had A Very Different Analysis As Compared To The Media
As I told you last year, one of my very best geopolitical sources had a very different view of how and why President Bush decided to take us to war in Iraq.  Here’s what I also said in May 2004:
“From the beginning, Stratfor had a very different take on why we went to war in Iraq.  In February and March of 2003, Stratfor laid out the following analysis for why we were going to war in Iraq:
‘The primary purpose of the Iraq campaign will, of course, be to influence and reshape the region. Al Qaeda has support throughout the Middle East, and most governments are either complicit or unwilling to incur the political costs of disrupting al Qaeda and similar [terrorist] groups at home. The purpose of this campaign is, first and foremost, to create a politico-military environment that persuades countries in the region to redefine their behavior. To put it more brutally and honestly, it is to bring massive military forces to bear on countries in the region in order to compel them to cooperate, or failing that, carry out future military confrontations.
There will be two dimensions to this. The first will be to redefine the atmosphere of the Middle East. Washington now accepts as a given that it bears the deep animosity of the region. Officials do not see any opportunity for a short-term solution to this problem, and the problem presented by al Qaeda is immediate. If the United States cannot be loved, the second best outcome is to be feared. A victory in Iraq would demonstrate both American will and power. If it can be coupled with a successful and relatively prosperous occupation, fear can be coupled with respect.
The second dimension is politico-military. Following the war, the United States not only would be an occupying power but also would field a force that is in effect indigenous to the region, at least from a military point of view. The presence of a massive, mobile force, permanently based in the region, without depending on the permission of others, would redefine the region dramatically.The United States expects to be able to use that force to its ends. [Emphasis added, GH.]
From the U.S. point of view, three countries are particular post-campaign targets: Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran… Once Iraq is occupied, U.S. forces will have two missions. The first will be the occupation, pacification and reconstruction of Iraq. The second will be to pose a direct military threat to these countries. The United States certainly has no intention or desire to invade any of these countries. At the same time, the United States takes the view that it is only the threat of direct military action that will compel them to cooperate in destroying al Qaeda. A threat has no meaning if it is not serious. Therefore, in order to be effective, the United States will have to be prepared to carry out follow-on campaigns…
For the United States, fighting and winning a war against Iraq has become a strategic imperative. Although it is true that this war could engender greater support for al Qaeda among the Islamic masses, the consequences of not attacking Baghdad—from Washington’s perspective—could be worse. But even more important, a victory and U.S. occupation of a conquered Iraq would reshape the political dynamic in the Middle East. The United States would be in a position to manipulate the region on an unprecedented scale.’  
Stratfor and its high placed sources believed from the beginning that the plan was to invade Iraq with overwhelming force, oust Saddam Hussein and install a permanent US force on the various Iraqi military bases seized in the conflict.  The war effort would result in the capture and control of the most strategic country in the region, and the US military presence would then be used, either directly or indirectly, to influence other countries in the region to oust al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”
Four Large New Military Bases In Iraq
The Washington Post was the first to run the story of the planned large, new – and probably permanent – US military bases in Iraq on Sunday, May 19.   The story was confirmed by top-level military officers in Iraq the following day.  The report said the Defense Department plans to consolidate the more than 100 bases where US personnel are now stationed in Iraq into four huge, new, more permanent bases.  The Post and others reported that these four new bases will be located in the north, south, west and center of Iraq.
The Washington Post reported that the military spokesmen who announced the base consolidation plans in Iraq were careful to assure the media that these bases will not be permanent.  The article quoted one military spokesman as saying the new plans are “part of a withdrawal expected to occur in phases, with Iraqi forces gradually taking over many of the bases inhabited by US and other foreign troops.”
However, a week after the initial article in the Post appeared, US military commanders in briefings in Washington and Baghdad, and in media interviews, said that growth of the insurgency has convinced them that the US will be in Iraq for “many more years to come.”  The commanders are particularly concerned that the pace at which Iraqi police, in particular, are being prepared to take over their own country’s defense is not going anywhere near as fast as the US would like.
Was The War In Iraq Worth It?  I Think So.
Public opinion on the war in Iraq has been very divided from the beginning, and for some understandable reasons.  As I argued in my May 18 E-Letter last year, if Bush was unwilling to share with the American people what was really driving the war in Iraq – a permanent US military presence in the Middle East and a continuation of the War On Terror – then he would be subject to widespread criticism, unless the war went spectacularly well.  It didn’t.
It has been clear for well over a year now that the Bush administration and the Defense Department did not adequately plan for the bloody insurgency that followed the initial success in toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime.

It goes on, but I’ve already quoted enough here.

Clearly, you’re not much of a student of US foreign policy or military history. I’d say they’ll be a minimum of 40,000 US troops in Iraq in 4 years. They are building at least 5 major permanent bases, and as many as 14. The stuff is pretty out in the open.

There was the prediction that we would be greeted with flowers and candy, the prediction that Chalabi natural and overwhelming popularity would make him a key ally of America and Iraq’s De Gaulle, the prediction in June, 2003, that electricity levels would be up to pre-sanction levels in six months, which has been revised, scientifically, every six months since—one of the best predictions ever. Then there was the prediction that the new democratic government would embrace constitutional rights for all, the prediction that Sistani was a different kind of cleric and would never, ever force Islamic law on the country, the prediction that Sadr was history, the prediction that Sadr was dead, the prediction that the rape of Fallujah—sorry, I meant the shining victory at Fallujah—broke the back of the insurgency (the metric in American bodies is, what, 800 since then? dead, I mean. Wounded around 6, 000). The prediction in 2002 in the official appropriations bill for medical care for the military that the peak figure would be 20,000, revised upward this summer to 100,000. The prediction that Allawi would win the election, the prediction that the Sunnis would vote in the election, the prediction that turning the government over to Allawi would end the insurgency, the prediction that the election would end the insurgency, the prediction that the insurgency was in the last throes, the prediction that Iraq’s occupation would be just like Germany’s, the prediction that Basra and Southern Iraq would go for a secular government like gangbusters, the prediction that Anbar provice was pacified (fill in your town—Samarra, Hit, Baghdad – was pacified), the prediction that the sweep of Baghdad had eliminated the suicide bombers, and of course the best pro-war headline ever, in the AEI for April, 2005: The War is Over, and We Won
(Headline, AEI magazine, April, 2005).
There is one prediction I’m truly interested in. The military forecast 80,000 recruits by this time in 2005, and they are down by 40,000. If the antiwar people can squeeze that figure further, the withdrawal from Iraq will not only happen, but the force will be small enough to deny the criminals in D.C. the ability to attack Iraq, Syria, or whatever. The withdrawal from Afghanistan will have to follow. It is a possible goal. That way, the only war the ‘decent left’ can wage is the one they want to age – in another possible world, in a galaxy far away. I’d be totally supportive of that war.

No. My point was simply that SIAW seem to support Bush and Blair ‘despite’ their policies, whereas in Harry’s Place you do indeed support those policies. Whatever you think that’s two VERY different positions. SIAW’s position doesn’t seem to me to make much sense (actually I’m not sure I understand it) but that’s a different issue.

Soru.

Thank you.

Prediction: within 4 years, the level of US military activity in Iraq will be lower than it was pre-invasion.

Very likely advisors, trainers and special forces, possibly a permanent rented air base, but nothing that could reasonably be described as an occupation.

soru

I can scarcely believe you wrote this:

Just my little joke there you understand! And of course, not really relevant, as you will doubtless point out. But I just like to remind people if, as seems to be the case, I get judged by the moral calibre of the people on the anti-war side, then this argument cuts both ways.

This, from you, who instigated this secondary disucssion when you refused to allow we pro-warriors to make a case for war in Iraq distinct from that made by Bush and Blair. Remember how SIAW are not allowed to support the war “despite” Bush and Blair?

In so far as you’ve come full-circle, welcome, but I rather suspect you’re simply confused.

But I also think it is quite clear that Iraq is going to muddle along as a poor, fragmentary state with a low-level civil war for a good long time to come. Which, incidentally, will prove as a place where international Sunni jihadis will find a relatively good space within which to operate and organize.

I still think that your position to support the invasion can be justified in terms of Saddam’s removal was welcomed by the Shi’ite and Kurdish communities, however. This is a point I don’t think the anti-war side is willing to admit.

I’m also not precisely sure what you mean when you say western democracy. If you define democracy by voting and representative insitutions, I think Iraq will have these at least into the middle-term future. I don’t rule out the possibility of a coup and a return to authoritarianism in the future, but I wouldn’t stand by this prediction. If by western democracy, you mean adoption of the rule of law as opposed clientelism and neo-patrimonialism and the adoption of secular ideology as opposed to religious and or ethnic identifications as the primary driving forces of democracy, than I think it is clear the country will not fulfill your expectations, at least not for a long, long time.

‘Although everyone is lining up for or against a war on Iraq, few are asking what the war would be for. We know it would be against Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. But what will the Americans and their British sidekicks be fighting to replace the tyrant with?
It’s impossible to say with certainty, but most reports from Washington suggest that Bush wants another tyrant and Blair will concur.’

What a crazy fool! I dissociate myself from him immediately.

But hold on. Here is another brilliant anti-war thinker who explicitly destroys that particular argument.

‘Using the massacres in New York and Washington as an excuse to go for Iraq never made sense. Saddam is a secular tyrant who prefers Stalin to Muhammad. An alliance between Baghdad and an al-Qaeda whose members would cheerfully have killed Saddam seemed unlikely, even to those who understood the ‘my enemy’s enemy’ principle. A story that Mohamed Atta met an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague before crashing into the Twin Towers played into Rumsfeld’s hands and swept round the world. It was quietly put out of its misery in January when the Czech police admitted they had no evidence that Atta had talked to the Iraqi Embassy. Perhaps one day we will know whether the newspapers which ‘revealed’ the ‘Prague connection’ were the victims of a cock-up or black propaganda….Blair, as you would expect, is harder to pin down. But Downing Street advisers told journalists he worried that an assault on Iraq would destabilise his friends in the Middle East….Every British account of diplomacy after 11 September says Blair lobbied against America attacking Iraq….’

Yes on the whole I will go with the arguments of journalist number 2, whose statements, note, are completely incompatible with journalist number 1.

Just my little joke there you understand! And of course, not really relevant, as you will doubtless point out. But I just like to remind people if, as seems to be the case, I get judged by the moral calibre of the people on the anti-war side, then this argument cuts both ways.

Anyway enough of this gay banter

‘1 – “The coalition forces will lose the war to remove Saddam” – as in, removing him from Kuwait was one thing, but ordinary Iraqis will unite against an invading foe.
2 – “The war will precipitate a refugee crisis.”
3 – “The war will spread to other Gulf states.”
4 – “Israel will get involved.”
5 – “The US will not allow Iraq to hold democratic elections.”
6 – “The US will cut and run once GWB has avenged his daddy and toppled the tyrant” – as in, the US is not interested in the democratisation of Iraq and would be happy for another dictator to take Saddam’s place.
7 – “Iraqis will reject “western” democracy even if 6 above turns out to be untrue.”’

5 of course is a ridiculous sentence and only a complete fool and hysterical anti-war ‘stopper’ like journalist number 1 would suggest such a thing. Same goes for statement 6. Only a complete imbecile or Saddam loyalist like journalist number 1 might think such a thing.

As for statement 1, if you have a TV put it on. The US/UK are currently in the process of losing the war and the only way to say otherwise is to agree with George Bush that this war ended when he said it did. Reality dictated otherwise, as it so frequently does.

All the other points seem to me to be not only still possible but in many cases likely. Since we were talking dates, come back to me in 10 years (or maybe even five) and see how amusing you still find them. Better still ask the Iraqi people, if there are any left.

1 – “The coalition forces will lose the war to remove Saddam” – as in, removing him from Kuwait was one thing, but ordinary Iraqis will unite against an invading foe.
2 – “The war will precipitate a refugee crisis.”
3 – “The war will spread to other Gulf states.”
4 – “Israel will get involved.”
5 – “The US will not allow Iraq to hold democratic elections.”
6 – “The US will cut and run once GWB has avenged his daddy and toppled the tyrant” – as in, the US is not interested in the democratisation of Iraq and would be happy for another dictator to take Saddam’s place.
7 – “Iraqis will reject “western” democracy even if 6 above turns out to be untrue.”

7 pre-war predictions made by various anti-war luminaries, all manifestly wrong or well on their way to being proved wrong.

(Note: reading back over what I wrote, i should have used the conditional tense so it read “The pro-invasion side were pretty careful not to make any predictions (i.e. about the way things would go in Iraq after the war)for the good reason that when they did, they were invariably wrong”) would have made things clearer. mea culpa).

However, if you feel that you are really on a roll as far as predictions will go, feel free to make some more. May I suggest predicting when you think the US will leave Iraq for starters? I mean, you know roughly. Answers in some form of temporal unit I can recognise, preferably with some form of number in front of it (rather than answers in terms of emotional states or pious rhetoric) will be appreciated.