The Greatest Story Never Told
Finally, the U.S. Mega-Bases in Iraq Make the News
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Think of this as the greatest American story of these years never told -- or more accurately, since there have been a few reports on a couple of these mega-bases -- never shown. After all, what an epic of construction this has been, as the Pentagon built a series of fortified American towns, each some 15 to 20 miles around, with many of the amenities of home, including big name fast-food franchises, PXes, and the like, in a hostile land in the midst of war and occupation. In terms of troops, the President may only have put his "surge" strategy into play in January 2007, but his Pentagon has been "surging" on base construction since April 2003.
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And let's remember one more base, though it's never called that: the massive imperial embassy, perhaps the biggest on the planet, being built, for nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars, on a nearly Vatican-sized 104-acre plot of land inside the Green Zone in Baghdad. It will be home to 1,000 "diplomats." It will cost an estimated $1.2 billion a year just to operate. With its own electricity and water systems, its anti-missile defenses, recreation, "retail and shopping" areas, and "blast-resistant" work spaces, it is essentially a fortified citadel, a base inside the fortified American heart of the Iraq capital. Like the mega-bases, it emits an aura of American, not Iraqi, "sovereignty." It, too, is being built "for the ages."
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