TomDispatchHere's what Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks wrote in Fiasco, his bestselling book about the occupation, on the administration's expectations that February: "[Paul] Wolfowitz told senior Army officers… he thought that within a few months of the invasion the U.S. troop level in Iraq would be thirty-four thousand, recalled [Johnny] Riggs, the Army general then at Army headquarters. Likewise, another three-star general, still on active duty, remembers being told to plan to have the U.S. occupation force reduced to thirty thousand troops by August 2003. An Army briefing a year later also noted that that number was the goal ‘by the end of the summer of 2003.'"
At present, approximately 37,000 American troops are garrisoned in South Korea. In other words, the original plan, in manpower terms, was for a Korea-style occupation of Iraq. But where were those troops to stay? The Pentagon had been pondering that, too -- and here's where the New York Times has forgotten its own history. On April 19, 2003, soon after American troops entered Baghdad, Times' reporters Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt had a striking front-page piece headlined, "Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq." It began:
"The United States is planning a long-term military relationship with the emerging government of Iraq, one that would grant the Pentagon access to military bases and project American influence into the heart of the unsettled region, senior Bush administration officials say. American military officials, in interviews this week, spoke of maintaining perhaps four bases in Iraq that could be used in the future: one at the international airport just outside Baghdad; another at 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 last at the Bashur air field in the Kurdish north."
At present, approximately 37,000 American troops are garrisoned in South Korea. In other words, the original plan, in manpower terms, was for a Korea-style occupation of Iraq. But where were those troops to stay? The Pentagon had been pondering that, too -- and here's where the New York Times has forgotten its own history. On April 19, 2003, soon after American troops entered Baghdad, Times' reporters Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt had a striking front-page piece headlined, "Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq." It began:
"The United States is planning a long-term military relationship with the emerging government of Iraq, one that would grant the Pentagon access to military bases and project American influence into the heart of the unsettled region, senior Bush administration officials say. American military officials, in interviews this week, spoke of maintaining perhaps four bases in Iraq that could be used in the future: one at the international airport just outside Baghdad; another at 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 last at the Bashur air field in the Kurdish north."
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