-Caveat Lector-
The Underground Military
William M. Arkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, May 7, 2001; 12:00 AM
The military facility in Iquitos, Peru is not a U.S. airbase, nor does it
appear in any list of U.S. military facilities. The Americans providing
real-time tracking information to the Peruvian air force are not government
or military personnel.
So, who are the gaggle of Iquitos "contractors" employed by a company named
Aviation Development Corporation, a company which is located on Maxwell Air
Force base in Montgomery, Alabama, but is not a part of the U.S. Air Force?
Who are the contractors operating a specially outfitted Cessna Citation V
surveillance plane that flies the U.S. flag but does not belong to the U.S.
government? Who are the contractors operating from a hangar built by a
Peruvian company paid by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers?
They are the fighters in our drug war!
The American people are supposed to believe that Peruvian operations to stem
the cocaine flow into the United States are innocuous, but we cannot know
who the players are or what they are up to until disaster strikes. When the
destroyer USS Cole met disaster in Yemen last October, or the Navy EP-3 was
attacked off of Hainan island, we were similarly educated about underground
activities of the U.S. military.
In his election campaign, President Bush vowed to reduce the American
military presence around the world. It's a particularly tough task when much
of the "presence" isn't acknowledged or official. Taken individually, each
country like Peru or a Yemen may have a justification for secrecy. But when
one adds up all the all the Peru's and Yemen's, it becomes apparent that the
U.S. military is increasingly everywhere and nowhere.
Israel: Capital of Classified Bases
At the same time Peru was in the headlines, there were press reports that
the United States and Israel had conducted an unusual joint military
exercise in the Negev desert. Jane's Defence Weekly called it Israel's
"first" exercise with the U.S. Air Force. The Jerusalem Post called it a
"marked boost in military cooperation." Neither assertion is true, but that
is the problem of an underground military policy. It is hard to know exactly
what is going on.
In fact, the United States and Israel have a regular series of military
exercises, going under the code names Juniper Stallion, Juniper Cobra, Noble
Shirley, and other Juniper variations. A month before March's Juniper
Stallion exercise, another American contingent was in Israel for Juniper
Cobra, a tactical missile defense exercise which included test-firing
Patriot missiles while the U.S. Navy Aegis destroyer USS Porter operated off
the coast. The exercise, perhaps coincidentally, ended just five days before
the February 16 U.S. and British air attacks against Iraqi air defense
sites.
Last year's Juniper Stallion exercise involved the aircraft carrier battle
group USS Eisenhower, and was from March 19-26. Eight U.S. aircraft operated
from Nevatim airfield in Israel and U.S. Navy SEALs went ashore to train
with their Israeli counterparts. During Juniper Stallion 2000, according to
the Eisenhower public affairs office, U.S. aircraft were able to drop live
bombs at two desert ranges in Israel, giving crews valuable experience given
the temporary prohibition from dropping live ordnance on Vieques Island in
Puerto Rico.
Juniper Stallion 99, held in August 1999, was an even more extensive, and
secret, exercise. U.S. Air Force munitions personnel from Italy were
deployed to officially non-existent sites where they inspected and
maintained the $500 million worth of ammunition the United States keeps in
Israel for wartime contingencies. Their bases, called Sites 51, 53, and 54,
don't appear on any map. Their specific locations are classified and highly
sensitive.
And it's not just munitions. The United States has "prepositioned" vehicles,
military equipment, even a 500-bed hospital, for U.S. Marines, Special
Forces, and Air Force fighter and bomber aircraft at at least six sites in
Israel, all part of what is antiseptically described as "U.S.-Israel
strategic cooperation."
Such cooperation may or may not enhance American security, may or may not be
a prudent part of planning to defend a close friend. The extent of U.S.
involvement may or may not be known and understood by U.S. decision-makers
and the Congress. But the reason for all the secrecy is clear: All around
Israel, in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the Gulf states, the U.S.
has newly built up an enormous and yet officially non-existent military
presence.
Nervous Hosts
Here is the web we weave: The Germany-based 22nd Fighter Squadron, the main
U.S. Air Force unit to participate in the March Juniper Stallion exercise in
Israel, returned from a 90-day tour in Saudi Arabia in late November. The
squadron's mission flying the southern Iraqi "no-fly" zone during its Saudi
deployment warranted a press release and a couple of stories in military
newspapers. But it's foray into Israel was--and is--"classified."
If the Air Force issued a press release about the Israel exercise, the 22nd
might not be allowed back into Saudi Arabia next time. Not to worry much
though. As the Persian Gulf has effectively become an American military
protectorate, the U.S. had built up more than a few, officially non-existent
facilities and "classified" operations in this part of the world as well. It
is secrecy that allows our Saudi hosts to ignore the U.S.-Israel
relationship, but also to maintain the fig leaf that they do not permit
military bases on their soil.
On the surface, it's all about "containing" Iraq, but underground, tens of
thousands of U.S. military personnel (and "contractors") have flooded the
entire region: an Army battalion mans the border north of Kuwait City;
"expeditionary" air units fly from airbases in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman; an aircraft carrier
battle group plies the waters in and around the Gulf, more and more depots
fill up with stockpiled weapons and munitions ready to accommodate
reinforcing ground and air units.
Waiting for Disaster
After the missionary plane shootdown in Peru, government spokesmen and CIA
officials were quick to justify their counterdrug arrangements ("vital,"
"working," blah, blah blah). Their explanations revealed not only a
labyrinth at Iquitos but at least a dozen additional officially non-existent
air bases, radars, command centers, and who knows what extending from
Honduras and El Salvador down to Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Columbia and
back north to Curacao, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas.
>From Central and South America to Israel to the Gulf, more than 200,000 U.S.
military personnel (and who knows how many "contractors") are out there
worldwide. Since the waning days of the Cold War, the number has declined by
about half. Yet about 90 percent of the cuts occurred as a result of
reductions in European-based forces, mostly in Germany. In most places
outside Europe, there have been significant increases in the underground
presence.
After the 2000 election, Colin Powell and other incoming Bush administration
foreign policy officials decried U.S. forces being stretched thin. "Our
plan," Powell says, "is to ... take a look not only at our deployments in
Bosnia but in Kosovo and many other places around the world, and make sure
those deployments are proper."
Though Congress has now indicated it will launch a broad review of U.S. drug
interdiction efforts, the Defense Department's "strategic review" is not
examining the new American realm in any comprehensive way. Will disaster
have to strike some else before we get a thoughtful look at the extent of
our secret overseas presence and commitments?
_____About the Author_____
William M. Arkin, a former Army intelligence analyst and consultant, has
written extensively about military affairs, including several books on the
topic. In 1994, his "The U.S. Military Online: A Directory for Internet
Access to the Department of Defense" was published. It's now in its second
edition. His Dot.Mil column, launched in November 1998, appears every other
Monday on washingtonpost.com. E-mail Arkin at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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