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03/28/2006:

"US planning bases across Middle East, Central Asia"

WASHINGTON: The United States is planning to build at least six bases across the Middle East and Central Asia in the next 10 years for “deep storage” of munitions and equipment to prepare for regional war contingencies.

According to William M Arkin, author of more than 10 books on military affairs, and a former US army intelligence analyst and nuclear weapons expert during the Cold War, the plan came to attention this month through contracting documents that call for the continued storage of everything from packaged meals ready to eat (MREs) to missiles in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman, as well as the establishment of two new storage hubs, one in a classified Middle Eastern country “west” of Saudi Arabia and the other in a yet to be decided “Central Asian state.”

The plans to continue to “pre-position” war material in the Persian Gulf region leave ambiguous whether the US military foresees the ability to establish a permanent present in Iraq in the long-term. By 2016, the contracting documents show that the tonnage of air munitions stored at sites outside Iraq will double from current levels.
dailytimes.com