- The Black Sea region connects Europe with Asia and the
Eurasian land mass to the Middle East through Turkey on its southern rim,
which borders Syria, Iraq and Iran.
-
- The northern Balkans lie on its western shores and the
Caucasus on its eastern end, the latter a land bridge to the Caspian Sea
and Central Asia.
-
- Ukraine, Russia and the strategic Sea of Azov are on
its northern perimeter.
-
- Given its central location, the Black Sea has been coveted
for millennia by major powers: The Persian and Roman empires, Greeks and
Hittites, Byzantines and Huns, Ottoman Turkey and Czarist Russia, even
by Napoleon's France and Hitler's Germany in their wars to unite Europe
to Asia and the Middle East.
-
- The famed Trojan War was fought for control of Troy/Dardania/Ilium,
the entrance to the Sea of Marmara which connects the Mediterranean to
the Black Sea. The strait connecting the two is still called the Dardanelles
after ancient Dardania.
-
- Going back to Antiquity a third continent has also been
involved, Africa; the Greek historian Herodotus claimed that the Black
Sea city of Colchis, now in modern Georgia, was founded by Egyptians and
in Virgil's if not Homer's account of the siege of Troy Memnon, king of
Abyssinia (Ethiopia), is slain by Achilles fighting in defense of Troy.
-
- A Romanian news source recently reiterated the importance
of the region for the modern era:
-
- "Through the Black Sea, the European area strategically
meets Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East, hydrocarbon production
and transit areas." (Nine O'Clock News, May 14, 2008)
-
- Allusions to the Black Sea's importance for not only
energy and transit but for world military purposes will occur frequently
in citations to follow.
-
- Prior to the breakup of the Warsaw Pact in 1989 and the
Soviet Union two years later the Black Sea was mainly off limits to the
West in general and to the Pentagon and NATO in particular. Until 1991
only four states bordered the sea, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and the Soviet
Union.
-
- Turkey as a key NATO member state was the West's sole
beachhead in the region with Bulgaria and Romania, the second more nominally
than in fact, members of the Eastern bloc and the Warsaw Pact.
-
- In the intervening eighteen years the situation in this
region, like so many others, has been transformed and a new battle for
control of it has emerged.
-
- There have arisen two new littoral states, Georgia and
Ukraine, with Abkhazia added last August, and every past Warsaw Pact nation
outside the former Soviet Union is currently a full member of both NATO
and the European Union - Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the former German
Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia - with three
former Soviet republics on the Baltic Sea - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
- also dual members.
-
- As an Indian commentator, Premen Addy, described it last
summer:
-
- "NATO's noose is drawn ever tighter round the Russian
neck. American military and missile bases are already ensconced in Romania
and Bulgaria - two states once in harness with Adolf Hitler's Third Reich
and the invading Nazi legions into the USSR - in a bid to strangle the
possible emergence of a rival centre of power in the Black Sea...."
(Daily Pioneer, August 16, 2008)
-
- A year earlier the online intelligence site The Power
and Interest News Report in an analysis called "Bulgaria, U.S. Bases
and Black Sea Geopolitics" summarized the situation regarding one
key Black Sea state in the following words:
-
- "Geographically speaking, Bulgaria provides the
U.S. (and N.A.T.O.) a greater presence in the Black Sea, through which
there are plans to build oil and gas pipelines. "Also, it is close
to the former Yugoslavia, a place of constant tensions, particularly in
the last decade. "The [new Pentagon] bases allow the U.S. to keep
increased control of the country and the Greater Middle East region, as
Washington now has a military presence in the south (America's 5th fleet
is based in Bahrain) and will have a presence in the north through nearby
Bulgaria." (August 29, 2007)
-
- Georgia
-
- Since 1991 but especially since the December 2003 "Rose
Revolution" the United States has transformed Georgia on the Black
Sea's eastern border into a private military preserve, first dispatching
Green Berets, then Marines to train, equip and transform the nation's armed
forces for wars abroad and at home.
-
- The revamped Georgian army was first tried out in Iraq,
where with a 2,000-troop contingent it had the third largest foreign force
in Iraq until last August when the US military, whose creation it was,
flew the soldiers home for the war with Russia.
-
- Before the echoes of last August's gunfire and artillery
rounds had died down the US sent its warship the USS McFaul to the Georgian
port city of Batumi and the flagship of its Sixth Fleet, the USS Mount
Whitney, to Poti whose mission was announced to the chronically credulous
as delivering "juice, powdered milk and hygiene products."
-
- Batumi is the capital of Ajaria, a former autonomous
region subjugated by the then newborn 'Rose' regime in April of 2004 after
its US-trained army staged Georgia's largest-ever military exercises in
nearby Poti and threatened invasion, lies just south of the Abkhazian capital
of Sukhumi, where Russian ships were then stationed. Warships of the world's
two major nuclear powers faced off against each other off the Black Sea
coast just 75 kilometers apart.
-
- At the same time NATO deployed a naval strike group to
the Black Sea consisting of three US warships, a Polish frigate, a German
frigate and a Spanish guided missile frigate as well as four Turkish vessels
with eight more warships planning to join the flotilla.
-
- The NATO warships were only 150 kilometers from Russian
counterparts then docked in Abkhazia.
-
- Ukraine
-
- On the north end of the Black Sea the US has led annual
Sea Breeze NATO exercises in Ukraine's Crimea, evoking mass outrage and
spirited protests from the Crimeans themselves whose parliament three days
ago voted against a proposed US representative office being set up, one
which no doubt would oversee both the suppression of increased autonomy
demands and anti-NATO actions in Crimea and prepare the groundwork for
the eviction of Russia's Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol.
-
- Regarding the second point, a Russian news site offered
these insights:
-
- "Analysts speak about Ukrainian plans to kick out
Russia and turn over the Crimean bases to NATO and the United States, as
both salivate for a military presence in the Black Sea Basin." (Voice
of Russia, May 28, 2008)
-
- "One of the conditions for NATO membership is absence
of foreign bases on the countryâ¤s territory....[Ukraine's
'orange' authorities] do what they can to drive away the Russian Black
Sea Fleet from the Crimea. In such a way Kiev signals to Brussels that
it is preparing a base for NATO naval ships in the Black Sea." (Voice
of Russia, May 22, 2008
-
- Georgia's and Ukraine's next, complete, phase of integration
as Pentagon's military outposts was announced last December and January,
respectively, when Washington signed Strategic Partnership Charters with
first Kiev and then Tbilisi. Months before that and only days after Georgia
launched its attack on South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers there, triggering
last August's war, all 26 NATO members sent representatives as part of
a delegation to the Georgian capital to establish a new NATO-Georgia Commission.
-
- At the same time the regime of Ukraine's Viktor Yushschenko,
who rode to power on the US-financed and -directed 'orange revolution'
of December 2004, and whose wife Kathy is a Chicago-born and -raised former
official in the Reagan State Department and the George H. W. Bush Treasury
Department and was once described by a fawning admirer as "a Reaganite's
Reaganite," used the deployment of Russian ships to the Black Sea
during the war with Georgia to apply pressure on the Black Sea Fleet, at
one point implying the ships might not be permitted to return to Sevastopol.
-
- Several weeks after the Caucasus war ended, Washington
sent an intelligence gathering ship, U.S. Pathfinder, to Sevastopol harbor.
-
- The Yushchenko junta renewed its accusations against
the Russian fleet late last month on another score, slightly over a month
after the Charter on Strategic Cooperation was signed with Washington.
-
- The Black Sea connects with the Sea of Azov, surrounded
almost entirely by Russia, at the Kerch Strait, the scene of a confrontation
between Russia and Ukraine in 2003.
-
- A Russian newspaper at the time explained what was at
stake in the dispute:
-
- "The Kerch Strait at the center of Russia's dispute
with Ukraine controls access to the Azov Sea, which is reputed to have
largely untapped hydrocarbon reserves. "Ownership rights to potential
oil and gas resources have not been decided between the two countries,
despite years of negotiations to delimit the seabed. "Although unlikely
to be a second Caspian, geologists believe the Azov Sea is likely part
of the same seam of hydrocarbon deposits that stretches from southern Ukraine
and Russia through the Black Sea to the Caspian and beyond." (Moscow
Times, October 24, 2003)
-
- The US's Stratfor augmented the above with this brief
analysis:
-
- "The Kerch Strait is a 25-mile-long channel that
is no wider than 9 miles, linking the critically important Black Sea to
the Sea of Azov off of Russia's Northern Caucasus border. It has served
as a key location for some strategic battles in the past from the Crimean
wars to a Nazi-Soviet naval clash. To Russia, the Kerch Strait is a continuation
of the Northern Caucasus into Ukraineâ's Crimea regions, which is
one of the country's most pro-Russian regions and home to Russia's Black
Sea Fleet located at Sevastopol." (November 10, 2008)
-
- More concisely and even more to the point, a few weeks
ago this quote appeared in a Ukrainian press wire report:
-
- "Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic aspirations require that
it solves all its problems, including border disputes. They need a border
[in the Kerch Strait] for just one reason: to be able to join NATO as soon
as possible." (Interfax-Ukraine, January 31, 2009)
-
- Bulgaria and Romania
-
- The US has signed Strategic Partnership Charters with
both Georgia and Ukraine over the past two months and the two nations are
the centerpieces for Washington's takeover of the Black Sea and indeed
the former Soviet Union as a whole.
-
- They are the main fulcra for the US-created GUAM (Georgia,
Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) bloc originally set up in 1997 as the main
transit route for 21st century Eurasian energy wars and for undermining
and undoing the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States. They are
also the foundation stones of the European Union's Eastern Partnership.
-
- But to date the main emphasis of the Pentagon's campaign
to conquer the Black Sea region, and arguably the major focal point for
its international shift to the east and the south, is with Bulgaria and
Romania.
-
- Both nations were formally brought into NATO at the 2004
Istanbul summit of the Alliance and since became the last - perhaps in
both senses of the word, most recent and final - members of the European
Union.
-
- Earlier, Bulgaria and Romania both denied Russia use
of their airspace to transport supplies to troops they had moved into Kosovo
in June of 1999.
-
- Russia was acting within its rights under the terms of
UN Resolution 1244 to protect ethnic minority communities in the Serbian
province, but clearly Bulgaria and Romania were following US and NATO orders
in blocking the flights.
-
- Whether, if Russia had persisted in its intent, the two
nations would have grounded the Russian aircraft or even shot them down
is a matter of conjecture, though perhaps not much.
-
- Later Romania allowed the US to use its Mikhail Kogalniceanu
Air Base in 2002 for the buildup to the following March's invasion of Iraq.
-
- In December of 2005, US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice traveled to the Romanian capital to sign an accord to use - take control
of - four military bases, the aforementioned Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base
and training and firing grounds in Babadag, Cincu and Smardan.
-
- The US's explanation at the time was that it was to employ
the four bases for training, including joint and multilateral exercises,
provision of supplies and transit for the downrange wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
-
- And Romanian territory has served those purposes ever
since.
-
- In April of the following year, 2006, the US signed a
comparable agreement with neighboring Bulgaria for the use of three of
its major military bases - the Bezmer air base, the Novo Selo army training
range and the Graf Ignatievo airfield.
-
- Both pacts were signed for an initial ten year duration.
-
- The US was allowed to station troops - estimates vary
from 5,000-10,000 - on a rotating or permanent basis in both countries.
-
- In the case of Bulgaria it will be the first time foreign
troops have been stationed on its soil since Nazi Wehrmacht forces were
driven out in 1944 and with Romania since Soviet troops withdrew in 1958.
-
- The seven sites in both countries will be the first US
military bases in former Warsaw Pact territory.
-
- The Bezmer air base in Bulgaria is a major facility,
similar in scope to Romania's Mihail Kogalniceanu, and its scale and purpose
for current and futures campaigns in the east and south are indicated by
this Bulgarian description:
-
- "[T]he airbase...according to the US-Bulgarian agreement...will
acquire the status of a strategic military facility in two years, like
the Incirlik airbase in Turkey and Aviano in Italy." (Standart News,
June 10, 2007)
-
- The same newspaper added that, "The Bezmer military
airport near the town of Yambol (southeastern Bulgaria) will be transformed
into one of the six new strategic airbases outside US borders." (Standart
News, June 6, 2007)
-
- Britain's Jane's Defence Weekly in late 2006 informed
its readers of the strategic sweep of the Pentagon's move into the Black
Sea:
-
- "[T]he new land, sea and airbases along the Black
Sea will provide much improved contingency access for deployments into
Central Asia, parts of the Middle East and Southwest Asia. "Perhaps
just as significantly, the new land, sea and airbases along the Black Sea
will provide much improved contingency access for deployments into Central
Asia, parts of the Middle East and Southwest Asia." (Sofia Echo, November
17, 2006)
-
- From the other end of the planet Lin Zhiyuan, deputy
office director of the World Military Affairs Research Department of the
Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, saw the developments through the
same lens but with trepidation:
-
- "[N]ew military bases, airports and training bases
will be built in Hungary, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and other nations to
ensure 'gangways' to some areas in the Middle East, African and Asia in
possible military actions in the years ahead." (People's Daily, December
5, 2006)
-
- Both preceding analyses were confirmed by the US military
itself the following year when Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, the U.S. Army Europe
operations chief and deputy chief of staff, spoke of Romania to an armed
forces publication:
-
- "It's in a critical location with emerging partners,
at a location which is really a place that has been a historical transit
route for bad guys."
-
- The interview added "The bases would house rotating
U.S. troops that would train under the command of Joint Task Force East,
headquartered at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base. "The U.S. signed a
Defense Cooperation Agreement with Romania in December 2005 to allow U.S.
forces to use the former communist nation for training, pre-positioning
of equipment and, if necessary, staging and deploying troops into war zones."
(Stars and Stripes, May 4, 2007)
-
- Two months after the US-Bulgarian agreement the US led
joint military training exercises in Bulgaria in which the head of local
troops involved effused, "We want to be certified as part of NATO
forces. We want to conduct expeditionary exercises as part of NATO."
(Stars and Stripes, July 22, 2006)
-
- The war games, named Immediate Response 2006, were designated
to break in the new bases in Bulgaria and Romania and to implement the
Rumsfeld era Pentagon's plans for military 'lily pads' from which to spring
into action to points east and south.
-
- In reporting on the exercise the main newspaper of the
US armed forces provided this background perspective:
-
- "According to the agreements, the U.S. would be
able to use the Romanian and Bulgarian bases for pre-positioning of equipment,
and to send U.S. troops and equipment into war if necessary. The "forward
operating sites," as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls them,
would be in Romania at the Smardan Training Range, Babadag Training Area
and Rail Head, Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, and Cincu Training Range."
(Stars and Stripes, July 5, 2006)
-
- A Bulgarian civilian cited by the same source said, "Every
day we can see them (U.S. troops) in the cities and villages." (Stars
and Stripes, July 24, 2006)
-
- By September of the same year, "Sofia and Washington
are to sign about 13 additional agreements to regulate the joint usage
of several military bases in Bulgaria. "Defence Minister Veselin Bliznakov
has announced that next week US European Command (EUCOM) experts will arrive
in Bulgaria to draw a draft document." (Sofia News Agency, September
21, 2006)
-
- The pacts with Bulgaria and Romania are, as usual in
such instances, to be jointly used by NATO as all three signatories are
members of the bloc.
-
- In a US armed forces dispatch titled "England-based
airmen head to NATO exercise in Bulgaria" it was reported that a British
"squadron plans to test-fire laser-guided and general-purpose weapons
at a Bulgarian range, as well as conduct air-to-air training with the Bulgarian
MiG-29 and -21 aircraft" in war games coded Exercise Immediate Response.
(Stars and Stripes, July 13, 2006)
-
- Later NATO continued its leapfrogging over the Pentagon
into Bulgaria as detailed in an article called "NATO bases may be
set up near Bulgaria's Sungulare" which included this report:
-
- "NATO asked if the former buildings of a tank brigade
in the town of Aitos could be turned into a reserve storage base. "NATO
planned to store here the equipment for one or two battalions, which would
be based in the military bases of Novo Selo and Bezmer." (Sofia Echo,
January 3, 2008)
-
- In fact what NATO achieved was securing a base of its
own.
-
- "NATO will pay 150 million US dollars to the Municipality
of Sungurlare (central Bulgaria) in exchange for a plot of municipal land
for the construction of a military base." (Standart News, December
2, 2007)
-
- The comparison between the Bulgarian Bezmer air base
and the US's and NATO's main strategic air (bombing) bases in Aviano, Italy
and Incirlik, Turkey was established earlier and this report later confirmed
the analogy's accuracy, though immediately in reference to another air
base.
-
- "NATO will move aircraft from the US air base in
Aviano, northeastern Italy, to Bulgaria's Graf Ignatievo air base near
Plovdiv." (Sofia News Agency, October 6, 2007)
-
- The above news item described the transfer as temporary,
but it may have been a portent of what is planned for the future.
-
- Aviano was the main base used by the US and NATO in their
joint Operation Deliberate Force bombing of the Bosnian Serb Republic in
1995 and in the 78-day terror bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999.
-
- To leave no further doubt as to under whose auspices
the Pentagon was able to secure its seven new bases for attacks to the
east and south, in the autumn of 2007, "A top general from the NATO's
Southern Command in Naples will inspect the two-week military exercises
of army units from Bulgaria, the USA and Romania which will be held near
the town of Sliven, in southern Bulgaria." (Standart News, September
3, 2007)
-
- And to dispel any misconceptions as to who the main target
of the US- and NATO-acquired bases was, in June of that year Russian President
Vladimir Putin, citing the emerging and unmistakable pattern of "a
new base in Bulgaria, another in Romania, a site in Poland, radar in the
Czech Republic," rhetorically queried "What are we supposed to
do? We cannot just observe all this." (New Europe [Belgium], Week
of June 2, 2007)
-
- The severity and urgency of the threat perceived by Russia
was such that General Vladimir Shamanov, adviser to Russia's Defense Minister,
was quoted as saying "We will point our missiles at the US military
facilities in Bulgaria and Romania." (Standart News, June 6, 2007)
-
- This concern was echoed by the Russian foreign ministry:
-
- "Russia once again voiced her concern with the deployment
of US military facilities in Bulgaria and Romania. "'We are deeply
concerned, because such a move entails an expansion of the US forces in
countries, which not long ago were allies of Russia,' Anatoly Antonov,
Head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Security and Disarmament Department,
said at an extraordinary conference on the Conventional Forces in Europe
Treaty (DOVSE,) held in Vienna." (Standart News, June 13, 2007)
-
- The Russian military, most directly alert to and aware
of the repercussions of the deployments, voiced its alarm in the person
of Maj. Gen. Vladimir Nikishin, a representative of the Defense Ministry's
Main International Military Cooperation Department, who said, "The
location of NATO bases in Bulgaria and Romania actually means that the
Alliance is creating bases for building up it forces in Eastern Europe,
which is at variance with the adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty."
(Interfax-Military, September 19, 2007)
-
- Two months afterward Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov would add, "Russia finds it hard to understand some decisions
of the NATO like, for example, the deployment of US military facilities
in Bulgaria and Romania." (Standart News, December 7, 2007)
-
- Lastly, the then chief of the general staff of the Russian
armed forces, Yuri Baluevsky, voiced concern that "Plans are...afoot
to set up new US military bases in Bulgaria and Romania, and unlike Russia,
no NATO country has so far raised a finger to ratify the modified CFE treaty."
(Voice of Russia, December 17, 2007)
-
- The above apprehensions could not have been assuaged
by comments that year from Solomon Passy, former Bulgarian foreign minister,
advocating that US infantry, air and naval forces be followed by missile
deployments.
-
- "Following the NATO treaty and the agreement for
joint military bases in Bulgaria I think this will be the next strategic
step that would enhance the security of the country, the region and the
whole of Europe....This shield should be [placed] above all member states
of NATO and the EU.� (Focus News Agency, June 10, 2007)
-
- Nor could Russian fears be alleviated by the announcement
the same month that "NATO defence ministers agreed at their Friday
meeting in Brussels to initiate procedures for adding a short-range missile
defence system in Eastern Europe to the on the US proposes that would also
include Bulgaria." (Sofia News Agency, June 15, 2007)
-
- Slightly over a year after the US-Bulgarian bases accord
had been inked it was announced that US troops were heading there and Romania
and "The bases are part of an ambitious plan to shift EUCOM's [the
Pentagon's European Command's] fighting brigades from western Europe -
mostly Germany - to forward bases closer to the Caucasus, the Balkans,
the Middle East and Africa, for a quicker strike capability." (United
Press International, May 18, 2007)
-
- The same report added:
-
- "'When this rebasing process is complete, two-thirds
of USAREUR's [United States Army Europe and Seventh Army's] maneuver forces
will be positioned in southern and eastern Europe,' [EUCOM and NATO's top
commander John] Craddock told the U.S. Senate in written testimony. "USEUCOM
has requested $73.6 million to build out Mikhail Kogalniceanu Air Base,
Romania, and to establish a forward operating station in Bulgaria."
(Ibid)
-
- The Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base received the first US
troops deployed to Romania in 2007 and has hosted the US European Command's
newly formed Joint Task Force East, formerly the Eastern Europe Task Force.
-
- The title of that unit alone reveals volumes.
-
- As soon as the Bulgarian and Romanian "full spectrum"
air, land and sea bases were acquired, the Pentagon moved to expand and
integrate them with its other Black Sea military partners, Georgia and
Ukraine.
-
- Referring specifically to the Romanian bases, it was
reported that "It is also possible that troops from others nations
would go to the sites to train, and that U.S. forces based there would,
as part of their six-month tour, travel to nearby nations such as Georgia
and Ukraine for shorter training missions." (Stars and Stripes, July
8, 2007)
-
- In May of 2007 the commander of US Air Forces in Europe,
Gen. Tom Hobbins, "visited with defense and air force leaders in Bulgaria
and Georgia May 14-16 to discuss air force capabilities, modernization
and future goals." (U.S. Air Forces in Europe, May 18, 2007)
-
- The same commander the following month, described as
looking "eastward to the Black Sea and southward into Africa,"
said: â¤Both Bulgaria and Romania have over a dozen projects
where runways are being enhanced, facilities [and] buildings are being
built. So we're actually taking advantage of the fact that there's a lot
of NATO money being spent...." (Air Force Magazine, June 2007)
-
- To make maximal use of the runways Hobbins mentioned,
in February of 2007 Reuters reported that the US was selling Romania 48
new fighter jets and recalled that "The Romanian facilities and bases
in Bulgaria will be the first U.S. military installations in the former
Soviet bloc." (Reuters, February 22, 2007)
-
- In August the US launched war games in Romania to inaugurate
its new forward sites and break in its new Joint Task Force East, a process
accompanied by no little fanfare:
-
- "About 1,000 mostly Europe-based military personnel
and civilians will have a ceremony today to commence the United States'
first deployment to Joint Task Force East." (MakFax [Macedonia], August
17, 2007)
-
- The significance of the exercise, named Proof of Principle,
was highlighted as being a watershed, that "The U.S. military's new
era in Eastern Europe has begun."
-
- The same news source elaborated:
-
- "American and Romanian military forces marked the
start of a historic, two-month exercise on Friday that will serve as a
trial run for thousands of U.S. troops expected to rotate in and out of
Romania and Bulgaria for years to come." (Stars and Stripes, August
18, 2007)
-
- Two months afterward the US held the Rodopi Javelin 2007
air warfare exercise in Bulgaria at the Graf Ignatevio air base where US
F-16s were able to practice against Russian-made Bulgarian MiG-29s for
future purposes.
-
- Earlier in the year a US destroyer, the San Jacinto,
had docked in the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Varna.
-
- In April of last year the US reprised the earlier joint
air exercise, also at the Graf Ignatevio air base. Similar aerial combat
drills have been conducted in Romania and in both countries US warplanes
are provided the opportunity of test their abilities against Russian-made
aircraft.
-
- A month afterward the US embassy announced that "a
deal to re-fit a Bulgarian military base, one of four due to be used...in
autumn 2008. "The Novo Selo camp in eastern Bulgaria will undergo
a $6.5 million refurbishment by the German-based company Field Camp Services
(FCS). "The Pentagon has also set aside some $60 million for the construction
of a permanent base at Novo Selo." (Agence France-Presse, May 14,
2008)
-
- In June a Bulgarian news source, in an article titled
"US Army Town to be Built near Novo Selo," wrote:
-
- "Five hundred soldiers and officers will settle
in Bulgaria permanently, the other 2,500 will live in the bases of Bezmer,
Novo Selo, Graf Ignatievo and Aitos on a rotation principle. "It means
that up to 5,000 troops may be using the bases when need arises....The
first US servicemen will arrive in Bulgaria this August. "Over 1,200
soldiers will take part in a three-month exercise called 'The Bulgarian
Panther.'" (Standart News, June 23, 2008)
-
- The following day another Bulgarian report appeared on
the expansion of US military sites in the nation:
-
- "{T]he US military base to be built near Novo Selo...is
expected to be of the size of an average Bulgarian town....500 US rangers
and their entire families would arrive at the base then to live permanently
there while deployed to Bulgaria. "Another 2,500 US soldiers would
use on rotation bases the military facilities in Bezmer, Graf Ignatievo
and Aitos....[T]he military airport in Bezmer...is slated to become one
of the 6 strategic military airport bases outside the US...." (Sofia
News Agency, June 24, 2008)
-
- Events proceeded similarly in Romania.
-
- "Construction of a permanent U.S. base in Romania
to house 1,700 personnel is well under way, with work on a similar facility
for up to 2,500 personnel due to start in Bulgaria this winter, according
to a U.S. official." (Stars and Stripes, July 27, 2008)
-
- In August of 2008 the Deputy of the Office for Defense
Cooperation with the US embassy in the Bulgarian capital Jake Daystar held
an interview with a Bulgarian news agency in which he said of one of the
new US bases in the nation, "The main purpose of the base is to improve
abilities through training â¤" both of NATO troops and
divisions of the US Army....The imperatives are hidden in the location
of the state "with its geographic location Bulgaria has always been
a strategically important country, as it stands on the crossroad between
Asia and Europe." (Focus News Agency, August 14, 2008)
-
- If Daystar was quoted accurately, his comments contain
an amazing admission. US army divisions range in size from 10,000 to 30,000
troops. Though perhaps he intended divisions as in various units rather
than in the formal designation.
-
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