Permanent bases in Iraq.

This from Laura Rozen from the LATimes. (Put Rozen's War and Piece on your blog list if you're a blog person. She doesn't publish a ton, but it's all original deep analysis.)

There have been significant reports of up to fourteen permanent bases being built by Bechtel and Halliburton in Iraq, basically, at the airfields and the Iraq and Syria borders, so that's not news. But I haven't previously come across the John Pike observation in the second two paragraphs, and I thought it was well worth a mention.

...Leaks from the Pentagon have deepened the uncertainty. In May, the Washington Post reported that military planning did not envision permanent bases in Iraq but rather stationing troops in nearby Kuwait. But the report noted that the Pentagon was also planning to consolidate U.S. troops in Iraq into four large fortified bases.

On the theory that concrete speaks louder than words, critics see such work as a sign the administration is planning to stay longer than it has acknowledged.

John E. Pike, a defense analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, points to another indication. Although the United States is systematically training Iraqis to fight the insurgents, he notes, the Pentagon has not taken key steps — like making plans for acquiring tanks or aircraft — to build an Iraqi military capable of defending the country against its neighbors.

To Pike that means that although the United States might reduce its troop level in Iraq, the fledgling nation, like Germany or South Korea, will require the sustained presence of a large American contingent, perhaps 50,000 soldiers. "We are building the base structure to facilitate exactly [that]," he says....