[THS] The 700 Military Bases of Afghanistan

[Peter Webster]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24640.htm

    The 700 Military Bases of Afghanistan

    Black Sites in the Empire of Bases

    By Nick Turse

    February 10, 2010 "TomDispatch" -- In the nineteenth century, it was a fort used
by British forces.  In the twentieth century, Soviet troops moved into the crumbling
facilities.  In December 2009, at this site in the Shinwar district of Afghanistan’s
Nangarhar Province, U.S. troops joined members of the Afghan National Army in
preparing the way for the next round of foreign occupation.  On its grounds, a new
military base is expected to rise, one of hundreds of camps and outposts scattered
across the country.

    Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion of
Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American, NATO, and other
coalition bases there, as well as facilities used by the Afghan security forces.  Such
bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble
small American towns.  Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases
of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are
under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last
year.

    Existing in the shadows, rarely reported on and little talked about, this base-
building program is nonetheless staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent
on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily
expensive.  It has added significantly to the already long secret list of Pentagon
property overseas and raises questions about just how long, after the planned
beginning of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the U.S. will still be garrisoning
Afghanistan.


    400 Foreign Bases in Afghanistan

    Colonel Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the U.S.-led International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF), tells TomDispatch that there are, at present, nearly 400 U.S.
and coalition bases in Afghanistan, including camps, forward operating bases, and
combat outposts.  In addition, there are at least 300 Afghan National Army (ANA) and
Afghan National Police (ANP) bases, most of them built, maintained, or supported by
the U.S.  A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield,
which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former
Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes
outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of
coalition forces and civilian contractors.

    In fact, Kandahar, which housed 9,000 coalition troops as recently as 2007, is
expected to have a population of as many as 35,000 troops by the time President
Obama's surge is complete, according to Colonel Kevin Wilson who oversees building
efforts in the southern half of Afghanistan for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  On
the other hand, the Shinwar site, according to Sgt. Tracy J. Smith of the U.S. 48th
Infantry Brigade Combat Team, will be a small forward operating base (FOB) that will
host both Afghan troops and foreign forces.

    Last fall, it was reported that more than $200 million in construction projects --
from barracks to cargo storage facilities -- were planned for or in-progress at
Bagram.  Substantial construction funds have also been set aside by the U.S. Air
Force to upgrade its air power capacity at Kandahar.  For example, $65 million has
been allocated to build additional apron space (where aircraft can be parked,
serviced, and loaded or unloaded) to accommodate more close-air support for
soldiers in the field and a greater intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
capability.  Another $61 million has also been earmarked for the construction of a
cargo helicopter apron and a tactical airlift apron there.

    Kandahar is just one of many sites currently being upgraded.  Exact figures on the
number of facilities being enlarged, improved, or hardened are unavailable but,
according a spokesman for ISAF, the military plans to expand several more bases to
accommodate the increase of troops as part of Afghan War commander Stanley
McChrystal’s surge strategy.  In addition, at least 12 more bases are slated to be built
to help handle the 30,000 extra American troops and thousands of NATO forces
beginning to arrive in the country.

    “Currently we have over $3 billion worth of work going on in Afghanistan,” says
Colonel Wilson, “and probably by the summer, when the dust settles from all the
uplift, we’ll have about $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion worth of that [in the South].”  By
comparison, between 2002 and 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers spent more than
$4.5 billion on construction projects, most of it base-building, in Afghanistan.

    At the site of the future FOB in Shinwar, more than 135 private construction
contractors attended what was termed an “Afghan-Coalition contractors rodeo.”
According to Lieutenant Fernando Roach, a contracting officer with the U.S. Army’s
Task Force Mountain Warrior, the event was designed “to give potential contractors a
walkthrough of the area so they'll have a solid overview of the scope of work.”  The
construction firms then bid on three separate projects: the renovation of the more
than 30-year old Soviet facilities, the building of new living quarters for Afghan and
coalition forces, and the construction of a two-kilometer wall for the base.

    In the weeks since the “rodeo,” the U.S. Army has announced additional plans to
upgrade facilities at other forward operating bases.  At FOB Airborne, located near
Kane-Ezzat in Wardak Province, for instance, the Army intends to put in reinforced
concrete bunkers and blast protection barriers as well as lay concrete foundations for
Re-Locatable Buildings (prefabricated, trailer-like structures used for living and
working quarters).  Similar work is also scheduled for FOB Altimur, an Army camp in
Logar Province.

    The Afghan Base Boom

    Recently, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Afghanistan District-Kabul,
announced that it would be seeking bids on “site assessments” for Afghan National
Security Forces District Headquarters Facilities nationwide.  The precise number of
Afghan bases scattered throughout the country is unclear.

    When asked by TomDispatch, Colonel Radmanish of the Afghan Ministry of
Defense would state only that major bases were located in Kabul, Pakteya, Kandahar,
Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif, and that ANA units operate all across Afghanistan.
Recent U.S. Army contracts for maintenance services provided to Afghan army and
police bases, however, suggest that there are no fewer than 300 such facilities that
are, according to an ISAF spokesman, not counted among the coalition base
inventory.

    As opposed to America’s fast-food-franchise-filled bases, Afghan ones are often
decidedly more rustic affairs.  The police headquarters in Khost Farang District,
Baghlan Province, is a good example.  According to a detailed site assessment
conducted by a local contractor for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Afghan
government, the district headquarters consists of mud and stone buildings
surrounded by a mud wall.  The site even lacks a deep well for water.  A trench fed
by a nearby spring is the only convenient water source.

    The U.S. bases that most resemble austere Afghan facilities are combat outposts,
also known as COPs.  Environmental Specialist Michael Bell of the Army Corps of
Engineers, Afghanistan Engineer District-South’s Real Estate Division, recently
described the facilities and life on such a base as he and his co-worker, Realty
Specialist Damian Salazar, saw it in late 2009:

    “COP Sangar... is a compound surrounded by mud and straw walls. Tents with
cots supplied the sleeping quarters
 A medical, pharmacy and command post tent
occupied the center of the COP, complete with a few computers with internet access
and three primitive operating tables. Showers had just been installed with hot
[water]... only available from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m...

    “An MWR [Morale, Welfare and Recreation] tent was erected on Thanksgiving Day
with an operating television; however, the tent was rarely used due to the cold. Most
of the troops used a tent with gym equipment for recreation... A cook trailer provided
a hot simple breakfast and supper. Lunch was MREs [meals ready to eat]. Nights
were pitch black with no outside lighting from the base or the city.”

    What Makes a Base?

    According to an official site assessment, future construction at the Khost Farang
District police headquarters will make use of sand, gravel, and stone, all available on
the spot.  Additionally, cement, steel, bricks, lime, and gypsum have been located for
purchase in Pol-e Khomri City, about 85 miles away.

    Constructing a base for American troops, however, is another matter.  For the far
less modest American needs of American troops, builders rely heavily on goods
imported over extremely long, difficult to traverse, and sometimes embattled supply
lines, all of which adds up to an extraordinarily costly affair.  “Our business runs on
materials,” Lieutenant General Robert Van Antwerp, commander of the Army Corps
of Engineers, told an audience at a town hall meeting in Afghanistan in December
2009.  “You have to bring in the lumber, you have to bring in the steel, you have to
bring in the containers and all that. Transport isn’t easy in this country -- number
one, the roads themselves, number two, coming through other countries to get here
-- there are just huge challenges in getting the materials here.”

    To facilitate U.S. base construction projects, a new “virtual storefront” -- an online
shopping portal -- has been launched by the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency
(DLA).  The Maintenance, Repair and Operations Uzbekistan Virtual Storefront
website and a defense contractor-owned and operated brick-and-mortar warehouse
facility that supports it aim to provide regionally-produced construction materials to
speed surge-accelerated building efforts.

    From a facility located in Termez, Uzbekistan, cement, concrete, fencing, roofing,
rope, sand, steel, gutters, pipe, and other construction material manufactured in
countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and
Turkmenistan can be rushed to nearby Afghanistan to accelerate base-building
efforts. “Having the products closer to the fight will make it easier for warfighters by
reducing logistics response and delivery time," says Chet Evanitsky, the DLA’s
construction and equipment supply chain division chief.

    America’s Shadowy Base World

    The Pentagon’s most recent inventory of bases lists a total of 716 overseas sites.
These include facilities owned and leased all across the Middle East as well as a
significant presence in Europe and Asia, especially Japan and South Korea.  Perhaps
even more notable than the Pentagon’s impressive public foreign property portfolio
are the many sites left off the official inventory.  While bases in the Persian Gulf
countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates are all listed, one
conspicuously absent site is Al-Udeid Air Base, a billion-dollar facility in nearby Qatar,
where the U.S. Air Force secretly oversees its on-going unmanned drone wars.

    The count also does not include any sites in Iraq where, as of August 2009, there
were still nearly 300 American bases and outposts.  Similarly, U.S. bases in
Afghanistan -- a significant percentage of the 400 foreign sites scattered across the
country -- are noticeably absent from the Pentagon inventory.

    Counting the remaining bases in Iraq -- as many as 50 are slated to be operating
after President Barack Obama’s August 31, 2010, deadline to remove all U.S. “combat
troops” from the country -- and those in Afghanistan, as well as black sites like Al-
Udeid, the total number of U.S. bases overseas now must significantly exceed 1,000.
Just exactly how many U.S. military bases (and allied facilities used by U.S. forces)
are scattered across the globe may never be publicly known.  What we do know --
from the experience of bases in Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea -- is that,
once built, they have a tendency toward permanency that a cessation of hostilities, or
even outright peace, has a way of not altering.

    After nearly a decade of war, close to 700 U.S., allied, and Afghan military bases
dot Afghanistan.  Until now, however, they have existed as black sites known to few
Americans outside the Pentagon.  It remains to be seen, a decade into the future,
how many of these sites will still be occupied by U.S. and allied troops and whose flag
will be planted on the ever-shifting British-Soviet-U.S./Afghan site at Shinwar.

    Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and the winner of a 2009
Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction as well as a James Aronson Award for
Social Justice Journalism. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the
Nation, In These Times, and regularly at TomDispatch. Turse is currently a fellow at
New York University's Center for the United States and the Cold War. He is the author
of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives (Metropolitan Books).
His website is NickTurse.com.

    Copyright 2010 Nick Turse