The Guardian (London) May 02, 2003
Military bases to be moved east
By Duncan Campbell
The US is planning to move tens of thousands of its service personnel from "old Europe" to the countries of the former eastern bloc, Pentagon plans reported in yesterday's Los Angeles Times show.
One reason is supposedly the resentment caused by the German and French opposition to the war in Iraq, in contrast to the support from eastern Europe.
"Why do we need a joint force to be in Germany, where there's nothing happening?" a senior officer told the paper. "You have to have troops close to ports and airfields that are closer to the action. And you also want to have them in a place where people agree with what you're doing, so they don't shut down ports and they don't shut down airfields."
As the US withdraws about 4,500 personnel from Saudi Arabia, where their presence in the land of Islam's holiest sites causes resentment, the Pentagon is reported to be accelerating its plan to move tens of thousands from Germany to new bases in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.
The news that the 1st Armoured Division will not return to its former bases in Germany when it leaves Iraq is cited as evidence.
The plan is said to involve the most widespread reshuf fling of US forces in Europe since they were first established in the then West Germany at the end of the second world war, and reinforced during the cold war.
"If you want to talk about suns not setting on empires, you know, the Brits had nothing compared to this," John Pike, a defence analyst with the intelligence and military policy thinktank GlobalSecurity.org, told the LA Times.
The US currently has more than 112,000 military personnel based in Europe, about 80% of them in Germany.
One advantage to the US of moving its forces will be the cheaper living and housing costs in the former eastern bloc countries, whose economies will benefit from such a large presence.
The initial plan is to build bases at Sarafovo airfield in Bulgaria and the nearby Black Sea port of Burgas.
Other facilities will be built at the Mihail Kogalniceanu airfield in Romania and the Black Sea port of Constanta, both of which were used as transit bases for the war on Iraq.
Such main sites in Germany as the Ramstein air base near Frankfurt will remain, the report says.
The reason for moving troops from Saudi Arabia, the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said, was that the region was safer now that Saddam Hussein had been deposed.
Copyright © 2003, Guardian Newspapers Limited
