Stuck in the Hot Zone: Don't dream about full exits. The military is in Iraq for the long haul.

Newsweak ^ | May 1, 2006 | Michael Hirsh

[angkor]

May 1, 2006 issue - Maj. Micah Morgan fondly pats the nose of his Predator drone, much as a cavalry officer of old might have stroked the muzzle of his prized horse. "This is the future of the Air Force," says Morgan, a former B-1 bomber pilot. It is a glorious day in the Sunni Triangle. Outside the "wire" of Balad Air Base the insurgency still rages and sectarian war looms, but the sky above is a deep azure and, no small thing, wholly American-owned. A relaxed Morgan watches from the shade of Saddam Hussein's old hardened hangars as another Predator—an unmanned craft about the size of a Cessna—approaches for a remote-control landing at the vast airfield after a recon mission. Stepping into one of his modular "ground-control stations," which are encased in steel and shipped to Balad as single units, Morgan flicks on a screen that shows his flock of drones (the exact number is classified, but it's the largest fleet in the world) hovering over Baghdad, each carrying two Hellfire missiles and searching with uncanny clarity for insurgents and other signs of trouble.

[snip]

Though soldiers and airmen at Balad jokingly call it "Mortaritaville," no one's been hit since January. And compared to the muddy, Porta Potti unpleasantness U.S. servicemen endure out at approximately 75 small "forward operating bases," Balad is shaping up to resemble a warrior's country club. A new rec hall is being built, and there is a 24/7 cybercafé, a premium coffee shop (Green Beans, known as the soldier's Starbucks worldwide), an indoor mini-golf course and a movie theater. There is an outdoor and an indoor pool left over from Uday Hussein's days training Iraqi Olympians here, but few remaining signs of the Hussein family, or indeed of anything Iraqi at all...

[angkor]

Having done duty there, I find it impossible to believe we'd "redeploy" out of Balad in the forseeable future.

Still missing KBR's steak and lobster tail Sundays, not to mention the occasional whole hog on a spit. Wonderful!

[Dark Skies]

No one in this adminstration (or out of it) has even spoken the name of the enemy (virulent islam). Until they do...the real war cannot even begin!

[okie01]

Once the country is stabilized, why should we leave Iraq?

For one thing, we're still in Germany and Japan, aren't we?

For another, we still have unfinished business in the Middle East...and Iraq is strategically situated.

Consequently, there should be no expectation that we'd vacate Iraq in the foreseeable future.

[ModelBreaker]

For another, we still have unfinished business in the Middle East...and Iraq is strategically situated.

I've always thought this was the single best reason for the war. We now have troops and heavy equipment prepositioned near Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia--three of the bad guys that will have to be humbled.

[okie01]

Though diplomatic niceties would never allow it, I believe the President could've made some hay by being brutally honest in the run-up to Gulf War II. Specifically:

1. Saddam, so to speak, needs killin'

2. And we need to occupy Iraq in Phase II of the WOT so as to be in a position to prosecute Phase III.

[SakoL61R]

I'm really missin' seafood Wednesdays and Mongolian Thursdays......not.

[angkor]

I never once tried the Mongolian.

The meatloaf was Soylent Brown.

[angkor]

Once the country is stabilized, why should we leave Iraq?

Anyone who sees the money and effort being put into Balad/Anaconda knows that we will not be leaving there anytime soon.

As the article says, Balad is one of the busiest military airbases in the world, and Anaconda is the logistics support command for all of Iraq, with everything that implies.

Oh.... the article is wrong about the Green Beans coffee shop. There are two Green Beans, one on the Balad AB side, and one on the LSA Anaconda side (but also in the Air Force section).

[dk/coro]

No one in Washington has the political cover to state the obvious:

From the get-go, the strategy of the Administration has been to ensure that Iraq is the bastion -- the forward field of battle -- in the unfolding Global Civilizational Clash between Islam and Western Democracy.

Just look at the map.

Further, anyone intellectually inept enough to argue against the old saw: "Rather there than here", had better become well acquainted with the astute writings of Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes. Their arguments buttressing Huntington's thesis are hard to refute, IMHO.

[roses of sharon]

My brother is at Al Asad, do you know that base/camp?

Are you in Iraq now?

[angkor]

Have heard of Al Asad but never been there.

Back since last year.

[angkor]

The article makes reference to it - and it's also been written about elsewhere - but Balad was always referred to as one of four "enduring bases" while I was there.

And despite it's huge and sophisticated footprint (a city that KBR has built from nothing), it's also out in the middle of nowhere, 50 miles north of Baghdad and surrounded by farmland.

It'll be there for a long time.

[Kakaze]

" I find it impossible to believe we'd "redeploy" out of Balad in the forseeable future"

Iraq, is the germany of the 21st century, thats why it was first. It will be our forward base of deployment and projection of power. The sooner we all come to terms with that the better off we will all be.