A Feb. 6 article quoted Romanian President Traian Basescu as saying that he allows the CIA and other U.S. agencies to land planes at the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base. A transcript of the interview shows that Basescu did not specify the CIA or a base but said that Romania has a "high traffic of planes from different American institutions, mainly involved in national security." The article also said he denied the base had hosted a covert CIA prison. He was not asked specifically about a prison and did not address that issue, but said that Romania respects law and human rights in cooperating with the United States in fighting terrorism.
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Romanians Eager for Long-Awaited Arrival of the Yanks
Villagers drive a horse-drawn cart through the streets of Mihail Kogalniceanu , a small town in southeast Romania. The Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Force Base will soon host up to 2,000 American troops on a rotating basis.
(Travis Fox - Washingtonpost.com)
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"You can't be a partner of the United States only when you need advantage and the support of the United States," Basescu said. "Sometimes the United States needs your support, and this is what we are doing."
The headquarters for the U.S. military's new Eastern European Task Force will be at the base, where 18 decommissioned MiG jet fighters with flat tires are parked along the tarmac as rusting echoes of the Cold War. Three other Romanian military sites will also be used for training, according to the agreement.
Times have clearly changed here since the Soviet Union collapsed: The base's main drag is called George Washington Boulevard. It was built by U.S. military engineers in 2003, when the base served as a stopover point for U.S. planes headed to and from the Iraqi theater. The engineers also renovated a gymnasium and built a helipad, said Romanian air force Lt. Cmdr. Adrian Vasile, a member of the command staff of the helicopter squadron stationed here.
Vasile said Romanian and U.S. troops had conducted at least six major joint military exercises here in the past decade. "We are a reliable ally," Vasile said.
Outside the base gates, in this town of 10,000 where people live in crumbling apartment blocks or on ramshackle family farms, the talk one recent day was not of geopolitics, but of jobs, roads, gas pipes and water systems.
"We think the establishment of an American base here will be an opportunity for our little town for development," said Vice Mayor Gheorghe Ciocoiu, a former Romanian air force pilot who flew MiG-29s at the base for 13 years before retiring to "this place we love." He said an American presence at the base would mean more commerce and more local people employed as bus drivers and construction workers, and in other service jobs.
"God knows how much we need investors to make the people's lives better," he said.
Along one of the town's dirt back roads, Catalin Gheondea was chopping firewood in a yard he shared with geese, chickens, turkeys and pigs. Like most people here, Gheondea, 28, said he struggled to get by on his animals and crops of corn and sunflowers. He said U.S. military exercises in the past had brought ripples of prosperity.
"We could feel something happening economically in the community," he said. "They created jobs and opened shops. It was different -- people had money."
Nicoleta Coconcia, 34, who runs a little shop selling products that include "American Cola" and "Original American Quality" chewing gum, said U.S. troops on the base would mean more business for her.
"I think we will be safer with the Americans here," she said, putting a sandwich into a microwave. "During communism, we never talked about America; it was something unknown. But now Americans and Romanians are getting more acquainted. Whenever we talk about the Americans, people are happy."
