Thursday, November 02, 2006
Southern Iraq approaches the tipping point!
Read this Not a surprise that Basrah International Airport is being made into the main base for British troops in Iraq.When I was in Iraq in 2004,based at the airport,it was common knowledge that work was already under way to turn it into a permanent RAF station for use both by the RAF and the USAF for many years to come!If you think about it the presence of an western military airfield in the centre of the middle east,literally a stone's throw from the Iranian border,capable of receiving massive reinforcements and mounting operations at a moments notice could well be a huge influence in western military planning in the years ahead.The infrastructure is already in place to receive and accommodate large troop and equipment movements and the relocation of Shaiba Logistics Base to Basra Air Station makes good sense,in fact I never understood why the main British Logistics base wasn't based at the airport in the first place as that is where all the air-delivered equipment and personnel landed anyway.All the other equipment either came by road up Route "Tampa" from Kuwait or by sea from Umm Quasa up route six,both MSRs passing the airbase by a few kilometers.If southern Iraq does separate from the rest of the country and become an independent state and starts to develop its new found wealth then possibly Basra air station might well become one of the most important military bases in the middle east!At that point I think both the British and US governments will never want to give it up!
Read also-I remember the quiet day we lost the war in Iraq by
Boris Johnson
