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The U.S. Embassy-Palace project has exclusively used labor from a Kuwaiti contractor rather than the underemployed Iraqi work force.

Writes the London Times, "Iraqi politicians opposed to the US presence protest that the scale of the project suggests that America retains long-term ambitions here. The International Crisis Group, a think-tank, said the embassy?s size 'is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their country'.


A State Department official said that the size reflected the 'massive amount of work still facing the US and our commitment to see it through'."

Four Permanent U.S. Superbases

On April 2, 2006, The Independent of the UK reported that "The Pentagon has revealed that coalition forces are spending millions of dollars establishing at least six 'enduring' bases in Iraq --- raising the prospect that US and UK forces could be involved in a long-term deployment in the country." Four of the superbases are for US forces, one is for British forces and one for Iraqi troops.

One of four US superbases is at Balad, which, per Newsweek, is nicknamed "Mortaritaville" and has a price tab of $231 million. Superbases now house up to 55,000 soldiers, and the President has asked for $175 million to enlarge the Al Asad air base, Balad, Camp Taji and Tallil air base.

Newsweek reports that the 15-square-mile Balad base resembles a "warrior's country club," and includes:

-- a state-of-the-art rec hall
-- its own bus system
-- a 24/7 cybercafe
-- supermarkets
-- a premium coffee house, Greenbeans, which is "known as the soldier's Starbucks"
-- a pizza restaurant
-- an indoor mini-golf course
-- a movie theater

Newsweek writes, "There is an outdoor and indoor pool left over from Uday Hussein's days training Iraqi Olympians here, but few remaining signs of the Hussein family, or indeed of anything Iraqi at all: to get to the big pool, you head down Texas Avenue, around Victory Loop past David Letterman Boulevard and then down Balad's main drag, called Pennsylvania Avenue."

U.S. Domination of the Middle East

Per The Independent of the UK, "Some analysts believe the desire to establish a long-term US military presence in Iraq was always one of the reasons behind the 2003 invasion.

Joseph Gerson, a historian of American military bases, said: 'The Bush administration's intention is to have a long-term military presence in the region ... For a number of years the US has sought to use a number of means to make sure it dominates in the Middle East... The Bush administration sees Iraq as an unsinkable aircraft carrier for its troops and bases for years to come.'

Zoltan Grossman, a geographer at Evergreen State College in Washington, said: 'After every U.S. military intervention since 1990 the Pentagon has left behind clusters of new bases in areas where it never before had a foothold.

The new string of bases stretch from Kosovo and adjacent Balkan states, to Iraq and other Persian Gulf states, into Afghanistan and other central Asian states ...

The only two obstacles to a geographically contiguous U.S. sphere of influence are Iran and Syria.' "