One Hundred And Six Permanent US Military Bases In Iraq

Thought this was an interesting article to add in here.

What Bush is Up To

One of the goals is to replace the present Syrian government with one the administration hopes will be more pliable in its policy toward Israel. Another is to construct four permanent bases in Iraq, and that means the administration has no intention of ever withdrawing all U.S. forces. The third goal is to attack Iran's nuclear facilities from the air. The propaganda campaign to justify this attack is already under way.
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The large American military bases in Iraq already exist and are being improved. These are billion-dollar-plus facilities, and you can bet nobody in the Bush administration intends to hand them over to the Iraqis. Watch carefully the language used when the Bush people, in or out of uniform, talk about "withdrawal." It is always surrounded by conditions. They don't intend to leave Iraq. Now, that doesn't mean that the new Iraqi government might not force them to leave. That remains to be seen.

Interesting to Observe the Density of US Armed Forces around the Oil Reserves.

US Central Command Facilities

Notice how the US Armed Forces are slowly Surrounding Iran?

US Bases Around Iran

160 US Bases only in Iraq?

I wonder how many Bases are there in Africa?

According to Global Security there are 3 Bases in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya - and Egypt ofcourse.

Anywhere else? Like in places where there are needs for an International Intervention? Like Congo - how many US Bases in Congo?

Who Would have thought...

See the problem here is that people are mistaking the layman's definition of withdrawal for the military definition of withdrawal. In the military withdrawal doesn't always mean that we will pull every single soldier from a war zone it just means that we will remove almost all of the forces doing security operations and leave a few behind in permanent bases just incase something happens.

Souljah, why don’t you mention US bases in the Pacific or Europe? I’m sure they must be near oil reserves too right?

[edit on 18-2-2006 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Ah yes souljah, all that oil we fought for in Iraq, to bring the gas prices down.....oh wait, they just went up again. Sure glad we went in to get all that oil so we could make things cheaper here at home.

CONTROL of the oil.

Do you really think they want low fuel prices?

The oil companies don't make record profits from low priced fuels.

BTW: Did anyone really get some free oil? I got none!

Here's the formula, millions of dollars from oil companies and subsidairies get you in the whitehouse, you better go pay me back in middle east oil! So, in a nation that thrives on advertisment, the bigger the campaign budget to smear your competition the better you stick in voters minds. I say we stop having campaign funding, give both tickets same amount of funding, and see who wins the old fashion way. What will the oil companies do with all the extra money? They won't have any because the presidents get elected on logic. What's logical? CHEAPER ENERGY. And the ride starts all over again.

The oil companies don't make record profits from low priced fuels

Record oil profits, why don't you look a the marginal earnings of those record profits.

Originally posted by WestPoint23

The oil companies don't make record profits from low priced fuels

Record oil profits, why don't you look a the marginal earnings of those record profits.

Must have missed that with all the headlines about the record profits in the billions.

Why don't you show us a link instead of asking us to trust you where it conflicts with public statements.

Yes Exxon and other big oil companies have made record oil profits but total dollar profit is meaningless without looking at the margin, this is the amount of cents a company gets for every dollars. Exxon Mobile posted a net profit of $9.92 billion on revenues of $100.717 billion for a margin of 9.85%. This is not much when you consider the marginal earnings of other companies. For example GE has a margin earning of 11% and Pfizer has about a 21% margin and Johnson and Johnson has about a 17% margin.
In fact when it comes to gross profit margin Exxon one of the biggest oil companies is ranked 127th.

If oil companies are somehow unfairly profiting from recent disasters and other world events, we would expect that margins would increase considerably, but this has not happened. Instead what we see is that Exxon Mobile has increased costs and expenditures that offset any additional profit. Oil company profits are just windfall profits, you cant blame them for it.

Note, I got my info from a 2005 Fortune 500 magazine that I have.

[edit on 18-2-2006 by WestPoint23]

As for the number of permanent bases, that seems a bit high for reality.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Record oil profits, why don't you look a the marginal earnings of those record profits.

Detailed Link in pdf.

That is correct; the margins are very, very low compared to many industries. The S&D problem is at the refinery level hence the reason refined gasoline was imported after Katrina (Thanks Britain). I deal with a few US oil company execs. and some just shook their heads others just laughed at the allegations.

US Congressional hearings were a political stunt, a diversion, per barrel of oil the US government makes more money than the oil companies…the US government did not lower the tax across the board, did they? Not to mention differing state and federal taxes such as Petroleum Business Tax, Excise Tax, State Sales Tax, and County Sales Tax on to infinitum….however the President did relax the EPA standards to get fuel flowing freely almost immediately.

The oil companies rushed to get the LNG terminals back on line, collected rigs torn from their moorings to get them back on line, worked around the clock getting back on line the damaged refineries…if they had waited for the feds gas prices would be unimaginable.

The oil industry in the US spends billions on R&D:

Oil Investment....&..... Oil Profit Margin Comparison (low detail)

If not to make a profit, for what?


mg

For some reason this makes me think of the crusader forts in Israel/Palastina.
But what purpose would they have this time...

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Oh my goodness Japan is still at war with the US because we have permanent bases there too, so is Germany. Quick, get the troops ready we are still at war with them!!!

Seriously, the US will probably have permanent bases in Iraq just like they have in other countries although I do doubt the 106 figure that is a bit unnecessary.
Are we occupying France, Germany, Japan, Romania or the UK? Don't think so, this is a non story. Currently the US has about 138K troops in Iraq, if we withdraw all of them out and leave only our permanent bases we will probably have only 5-10K at the most. And that's not for occupying the county, it just for having a presence in that part of the world.

Westpoint32, am I correct that judging by your post youd would like to see American bases in every country of the world?

As of 2003 we're looking at +/- 725 military installations outside the US territory which are directly controlled by the US military.

Japan,

edition.cnn.com...

so on - www.globalissues.org...

www.cato.org...

I'm not going to search for every link, but most EU countries have consistently and repeatably pushed for US withdrawal since the end of the Cold War there they simply don't want large bases. Thus the aggressive push into "cheap" Eastern Europe ex-block satellites which are strapped for cash.

Nobody "likes" having foreign military forces on their land, period.

It's just the latest chapter in US military expansion around the Globe.

After WW2 the US retained many bases in UK due to the Cold War, once that was over most military facilities were closed but strangely the intelligence-gathering / spy bases, radar outposts etc etc remain.

US forces will never leave Iraq.

I wonder what the reaction would be if we had spybases within the US?

Yep..

"Another star to the flag" says Uncle Sam.

Originally posted by Strangerous

US forces will never leave Iraq.

I wonder what the reaction would be if we had spybases within the US?

People thougth we wouldn't leave Saudi Arabia, I wonder why we left? What about moving forces from Western Europe to Eastern Europe? Already whenever we start reducing troops or redeploying them, the locals like Germany for example are nervous. Same thing for South Korea where the number of troops has reduced as well as pulled back from the DMZ that the South Koreans are also nervous. We pulled troops out of the Phillipines, but now are back in because of the Islamic insurgency. It depends on the environment that asks for American troops. Should remember that for example we pulled out of Panama after Carter promised to hand over the Canal to the Panamanians. So don't give up hope that American forces will leave Iraq, it depends on the situation.

Westpoint32, am I correct that judging by your post youd would like to see American bases in every country of the world?

No of course not, only in every region of the world. These bases help our military mobilize faster if something in that region happens, it allows us to influence or maintain a power balance in a given region, and it allows us access to important strategic locations.

US forces will never leave Iraq.

Umm… like I said before the overwhelming majority of US force will leave Iraq, however we probably will retain some bases there for stability and strategic reasons.

Westpoint23:

Your God-given right to enslave the World eh?

Or is the whole world desperate to be ruled by the US?

You never seem to question your country's motives, is all this military might, invasions etc etc for everyone else's benefit or just to prop up your failing economy and corrupt system?

[edit on 4-4-2006 by Strangerous]

There are 4 permanent installations for U.S. forces planned.

The other's being upgraded for Iraqi use.

Your God-given right to enslave the World eh?

How is the US enslaving the world? And what does this have to do with the base issue, there is no correlation between US bases and enslavement. You should know that US bases are constructed from a bilateral agreement.

You never seem to question your country's motives, is all this military might, invasions etc etc for everyone else's benefit or just to prop up your failing economy and corrupt system?

Well, considering that our economy is the largest in the world and that its growing at a consistent rate I fail to see you point. Also, our military is fist and foremost for self preservation and for ensuring that our interests and way of life are maintained.

Preserving your way of life by invading countries half-way around the World?

Preserving your right to all drive cars with 6 litre engines more like!!!

Bi-lateral agreements? LOL - given the US record of assination, interference in elections and terrorist attacks (not to mention invasion and punitive airstrikes) you can't seriously think bi-lateral agreements are entered into willingly.

The US is the bully of the modern world willing to shed others' blood for political points, cheap oil, cheap raw materials - if you can't see that then you clearly don't see the true picture.

Thats alot of bases...just think how many soldiers that is at each base...wow.