Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From MESH Admin

When President Bush set out for the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, he might have been briefed on the U.S. military footprint in the region. A useful inventory is provided in a November paper by James A. Russell, a Gulf analyst and senior lecturer in the Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School. Russell notes that the U.S. infrastructure in the 1990s included these familiar elements:

• Central Command Naval Component, or NAV- CENT, in Manama, Bahrain.
• Air Force Central Command Component, first at Eskan Village in Saudi Arabia before moving to Prince Sultan Air Base and then to Al Udeid in Qatar in August 2003.
• Army Central Command Component, Kuwait.
• Heavy Brigade sets of ground equipment in Qatar and Kuwait, and afloat.
• Harvest Falcon Air Force equipment at Seeb in Oman.
• Aerial refueling detachment at Al Dhafra in the United Arab Emirates.

Since the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the infrastructure has grown into what Russell calls “a veritable alphabet soup of new command elements, organizations, and operational nodes.” His expanded inventory list (drawing on the CENTCOM 2006 posture statement) includes:

• Combined Forces Command Afghanistan (CFC-A) in Kabul that works with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.
• Also in Afghanistan, the Combined Joint Task Force 76 that directs combat operations throughout Afghanistan.
• Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa in Djibouti (CJTF-HOA), which is assisting countries in the region to build indigenous counterterrorist capabilities.
• Combined Joint Task Force 150, a coalition maritime naval assemblage commanded by a revolving series of multinational officers out of Manama that includes nine ships from seven countries performing maritime security in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
• Combined Forces Air Component Command’s Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid, Qatar. This constitutes the Air Force’s Central Command forward-deployed theater component.
• Central Command Forward Headquarters (CENTCOM-CFC), Camp As Saylihyah, Qatar, serving as the leading edge of headquarters elements based at Central Command’s headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.
• Central Command Special Operations Headquarters (SOCCENT), Qatar, which coordinates special operations in theater.
• Multi-National Forces Iraq (MNF-I), overseeing all combat operations in Iraq.
• Multi-National Security Training Command (MNSTC-I) that coordinates the program to train and equip Iraqi forces.
• NATO Training Mission that focuses on developing the Iraqi officer corps.
• Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC), Kuwait, constituting the Army’s Central Command component that coordinates Army activity throughout the Central Command area of responsibility. CFLCC also maintains an area support group, or ASG, at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar.
• Central Command Deployment and Distribution Center (CDDOC), Kuwait, that supports theater-wide logistics and information distribution.
• Information, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance launch and recovery facility at Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates. This facility provides the Air Force Central Command Component with an operational and logistics hub to support theater-wide intelligence surveillance and collection with a variety of collection platforms.

Russell also makes reference to the following base “upgrades”:

• In October 2004, as part of supplemental appropriations to fund ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress earmarked $63 million in military construction funds for improvements at the Al Dhafra airfield in the United Arab Emirates, which accommodated a U.S. Air Force aerial refueling detachment during the 1990s and now hosts an information, surveillance, and reconnaissance launch and recovery facility. The same bill contained $60 million to fund additional enhancements to the Al Udeid airfield in Qatar.
• In Afghanistan, the United States is spending $83 million to upgrade its two main bases at Bagram Air Base (north of Kabul) and Kandahar Air Field to the south. The funding will be used to expand runways and other improvements to provide new billeting facilities for U.S. military personnel.
• The expansion of the facilities infrastructure in Afghanistan has been mirrored by the development of facilities and solidified politico-military partnerships in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.
• In early 2006, Congress approved $413.4 million for Army military construction projects in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2010. The same bill funded $36 million for Air Force construction projects in these countries.
• In Iraq, the United States so far has spent an estimated $240 million on construction at the Balad base (north of Baghdad), the main air transportation and supply hub; $46.3 million at Al Asad, the largest military air center and major supply base for troops in Al Anbar; and $121 million at Tallil air base (southern Iraq). Other projects include $49.6 million for Camp Taji located just 20 miles northwest of Baghdad; $165 million to build an Iraqi Army base near the southern town of Numaiy; and $150 million for the Iraqi Army Al Kasik base north of Mosul.