Indications of a PERMANENT Presence of US Troops in Iraq

This article makes it very clear that the United States plans to never leave Iraq.

The facilities involved are extensive, expensive, and permanent.

Inside spacious, air-conditioned “Kingpin,” a new air traffic control center at this huge Air Force hub 50 miles north of Baghdad......

“We’re the busiest aerial port in DoD,”.....

Early this year, with little fanfare, the Air Force sent a squadron of A-10 “Warthog” attack planes — a dozen or more aircraft — to be based at Al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq. At the same time it added a squadron of F-16C Fighting Falcons here at Balad......

Those big bombers were moved last year from distant Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to an undisclosed base in the Persian Gulf.....

The weaker of Balad’s two 11,000-foot runways was reinforced — for five to seven years’ more hard use. The engineers next will build concrete “overruns” at the runways’ ends. Balad’s strategic ramp, the concrete parking lot for its biggest planes, was expanded last fall. The air traffic control system is to be upgraded again with the latest technology.

This folly is going to kill a lot of US troops. It fuels the insurgency.