Ever get that sense of deja vu all over again ?

AFX News Limited
US military confirms plans to consolidate its bases in Iraq
May 22nd 2005

WASHINGTON (AFX) - A US military spokesman in Iraq confirmed a Washington Post report that the US will consolidate its forces in Iraq onto four big air bases.

Lt. Commander Gil Mendez, subsequently told Agence France-Presse in Iraq that 'the information contained in The Washington Post article today accurately depicts the future plan for consolidating bases in Iraq.

The Post article listed 4 bases to be centred at Tallil in southern Iraq, Al Asad in the west, Balad in central Iraq and at Irbil or Qayyarah in the north.

The Post was unclear what happens to US-run detention centres in Iraq which currently hold over 11,000 (?) inmates........

Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times Saturday 19 April 2003

American military officials, spoke this week, of maintaining perhaps 4 bases in Iraq that could be used in the future: the international airport just outside Baghdad; Tallil, near Nasiriya in the south; the third at an isolated airstrip called H-1 in the western desert, along the old oil pipeline that runs to Jordan; and the Bashur air field in the Kurdish north.

The military is already using these bases to support continuing operations against the remnants of the old government, to deliver supplies and relief aid, and for reconnaissance patrols. But as the invasion force withdraws in the months ahead, turning over control to a new Iraqi government…….

"There will be some kind of a long-term defense relationship with a new Iraq, similar to Afghanistan," said one senior administration official. These goals do not contradict the administration's official policy of rapid withdrawal from Iraq …….


Cakewalk In Iraq
By Ken Adelman
Washington Post Wednesday, February 13, 2002; Page A27

Even before President Bush had placed Iraq on his "axis of evil," dire warnings were being sounded about the danger of acting against Saddam Hussein's regime .....