Cost of Empire: Remember Kosovo? Why we are Bankrupt

Remember Kosovo? No not the song, the WAR. Well, here’s what we get when we are all done with the fighting and nationbuilding. From a 2003 Report. We’ve come a long way, Baby.

Multiply this by IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, and now PAKISTAN, and add whatever else comes up in the future (Iran, North Korea?). It costs real MONEY to keep these bases going.

EXAMPLE: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield noted during a June 2001 visit that Camp Bondsteel incurs a $148M cost per year

Another view, closer up, Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo

Camp Bondsteel was constructed by the 94th Engineer Construction Battalion together with the private Kellogg, Brown and Root Corporation (KBR) under the direction of the Army Corps of Engineers. KBR is also the prime contractor for the operation of the camp. The camp is built mainly of wooden, semi permanent SEA (South East Asia) huts and is surrounded by a 8 foot high earthen wall. The camp occupies 955 acres of land. To construct the base two hills were lopped off and the valley between them was filled with the resulting material.

Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo

Camp Bondsteel is the main base of the United States Army under KFOR command in Kosovo. Located near the town of Uroševac (Ferizaj) in the eastern part of Kosovo, the base serves as the NATO headquarters for KFOR’s Multinational Task Force East (MNTF-E). The base is named after Vietnam War Medal of Honor recipient United States Army Staff Sergeant James L. Bondsteel.

David Isenberg, a senior analyst with the Washington-based British American Security Information Council (BASIC), has a wide background in arms control and national security issues writes
“…Part of this redistribution is what author Chalmers Johnson calls “Baseworld”. Johnson writes: “It’s not easy to assess the size or exact value of our empire of bases. Official records on these subjects are misleading, although instructive. According to the Defense Department’s annual ‘Base Structure Report’ for fiscal year 2003, which itemizes foreign and domestic US military real estate, the Pentagon currently owns or rents 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and has another 6,000 bases in the US and its territories. Pentagon bureaucrats calculate that it would require at least [US]$113.2 billion to replace just the foreign bases – surely far too low a figure, but still larger than the gross domestic product of most countries – and an estimated $592 billion to replace all of them. The military high command deploys to its overseas bases some 253,288 uniformed personnel, plus an equal number of dependents and Department of Defense civilian officials, and employs an additional 44,446 locally hired foreigners. The Pentagon claims that these bases contain 44,870 barracks, hangars, hospitals, and other buildings, which it owns, and that it leases 4,844 more.

“These numbers, although staggeringly large, do not begin to cover all the actual bases that we occupy globally. The 2003 Base Status Report fails to mention, for instance, any garrisons in Kosovo – even though it is the site of the huge Camp Bondsteel, built in 1999 and maintained ever since by Kellogg, Brown & Root. The report similarly omits bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar and Uzbekistan, although the US military has established colossal base structures throughout the so-called arc of instability in the two-and-a-half years since September 11.”

Write to your Congress Member and Senators, tell them NO MORE TROOPS FOR AFGHANISTAN, NO MORE MONEY FOR IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, and PAKISTAN, bring our Troops home now.

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Tags: Afghanistan, Cost of War, Iraq, Kosovo, Pakistan