50 More Years in Iraq?

Here's the transcript of Snow's mid-day briefing.

The Issue of Permanent Military Bases

Some of us have been trying for some time to get some clarity from the Bush administration on its long-term intentions regarding Iraq. The question is whether the United States intends to have a permanent presence on the massive military bases it has been building at great expense in Iraq.

In August 2005, writing on the NiemanWatchdog.org Web site (where I am deputy editor) I called upon my fellow journalists to pin the White House down on this one.

The few peripatetic attempts to do so have been inconclusive.

Here's Bush in an October 25, 2006 press conference:

"Q Thank you, Mr. President. Does the United States want to maintain permanent bases in Iraq? And I would follow that by asking, are you willing to renounce a claim on permanent bases in Iraq?

"THE PRESIDENT: Jim, any decisions about permanency in Iraq will be made by the Iraqi government. And, frankly, it's not in much of a position to be thinking about what the world is going to look like five or 10 years from now. They are working to make sure that we succeed in the short-term. And they need our help. And that's where our focus is.

"But remember, when you're talking about bases and troops, we're dealing with a sovereign government. Now, we entered into an agreement with the Karzai government. They weren't called permanent bases, but they were called arrangements that will help this government understand that there will be a U.S. presence so long as they want them there. And at the appropriate time, I'm confident we'll be willing to sit down and discuss the long-term security of Iraq. But right now we're discussing how to bring security to Baghdad, and what do we do in al Anbar province, where al Qaeda still uses violent methods to achieve political objectives."

But the administration's goal has been sort of an open secret for a long time.

On Feb. 1, 2006, former President Jimmy Carter told CNN's Larry King: "What I believe is that there are people in Washington now, some of our top leaders, who never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq and they're looking for ten, 20, 50 years in the future . . . because that was the reason that we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region and I have never heard any of our leaders say that they would commit themselves to the Iraqi people that ten years from now there will be no military bases of the United States in Iraq."

Charles J. Hanley wrote for the Associated Press in March 2006 from Balad Air Base in Iraq: "The concrete vanishes into the noonday glare, 2 million cubic feet of it, a mile-long slab that's now the home of up to 120 U.S. helicopters, a "heli-park" as good as any back in the states.

"At another giant base, al-Asad in Iraq's western desert, the 17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling American town, with a Burger King, a Pizza Hut and a car dealership, stop signs, traffic regulations and young bikers clogging the roads.