Occupiers Behind Bars

If Bush is leaving to future presidents just how to extract the country from Iraq, one thing he's decided to do while he's still (nominally) in charge is build massive bases. The U.S. may be winding down its reconstruction projects -- with the only new money going to prison cells -- but Washington has authorized $1 billion dollars for military construction. The purpose: to consolidate massive bases like Anaconda in Balad (already over 2 million cubic feet and home to 120 helicopters) and to expand numerous other installations, which were military hubs under Saddam.

As American soldiers pull back from the cities, such fortifications are going up in remote locations of Iraq, and like al-Asad in the western desert amount to huge concrete cities. According to the AP, "17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling American town, with a Burger King, Pizza Hut, and a car dealership, stop signs, traffice regulations, and young bikers clogging the roads." Asked whether the U.S. is in Iraq to stay, one young soldier at the base in Balad responded, "I think we'll be here forever."

The scope of these militaries cities is remarkable for two reasons. First, it reinforces just how physically and politically isolated the U.S. has become. CPA officials under Grand Vizier Bremer famously referred to their headquarters in Baghdad as the Green Zone, and the area outside the blast walls (i.e. all of Iraq) as the Red Zone. The Green Zone/Red Zone divide underscored the utter lack of control CPA officials exerted over their own occupation. In a sense, these bases -- intended to provide the military with a modicum of normalcy -- speak to the same predicament. By retreating from where power and politics operates in Iraq to isolated corners behind impenetrable concrete, the U.S. is simply highlighting its inability assert authority over the country. America is now primarily a witness, imposing a facade of calm for its soldiers while staggering from event to event and utterly disconnected from the real Iraq, the Red Zone.

Rather than suggesting clear, long-term designs, the bases are also a perfect embodiment of the Administration's short-term, reactive thinking -- doing what it takes at the moment to insulate the occupation from the very consequences of its actions (the violence and uncertainty all around it). The Administration has been repeatedly accused of having nefarious geostrategic plans for the country, of which these bases are considered tangible proof -- clearly at least some soldiers seem to think we're "in country" for good. And certainly, one of the hopes of a successful Iraq War was the idea of employing Iraq as a military outpost in the region -- one friendlier and more secure than Saudia Arabia.

Yet, at this point, perhaps why the military is so coy in telling us what the future plans are for the bases is because they really don't know. American politics may call an end to the whole fiasco by the end of this year. In other words, there is no conspiracy because the conspirators have no idea what their plans are. If miraculously a stable and pliable Iraq emerges, the original goal for such bases may be implemented -- but nobody's holding their breath. For the time being, the military construction is just further proof of action without policy or ultimate purpose. Like the creation of the Green Zone, the bases are part of an unreality the U.S. hopes to impose on Iraq -- and if that unreality can't work for the country at least it can exist behind the concrete for the administrators.