Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Centcom - the US miltary's energy command
In the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution,
the US set up a new military command called Centcom, with its HQ in Florida.
It's referred to as “central” because it occupies the central zone between the
US commands in Europe and Asia. But it has also been central to US military
activity in recent years.
Most of the US servicemen killed in combat since the mid-1980s have been
under Centcom command. It has been involved in four wars - marginally in the
Iran-Iraq war (protecting Kuwaiti tankers), but heavily in the two Iraq wars and
the ongoing campaign, unrelated to oil, in Afghanistan. (After the 9/11 attacks,
Centcom's responsibilities were extended to cooperation with central Asian
states helping the US in the northern flank of Afghanistan.)
The Gulf War of 1991
Iraq's invasion of its neighbour Kuwait in August 1990 brought an
immediate reaction from the US. Washington was all too aware that not
only did Saddam Hussein now have Kuwaiti reserves at his disposal, but
he also had the biggest Saudi oil fields in eastern Saudi Arabia within
his striking distance. Shortly after the invasion, President George Bush
senior made the oil factor explicit, stating: “our jobs, our way of life, our
own freedom and the freedom of friendly countries around the world
would all suffer if control of the world's great oil reserves fell into the
hands of Saddam Hussein”.
Saddam Hussein's naked aggression had put Iraq entirely in the wrong
and made a United Nations Security Council resolution against Iraq a
foregone conclusion. But had no oil been involved, it is unlikely that the
US and nearly thirty other countries would have assembled forces of near-
ly one million men to eject Iraq out of Kuwait. (Bush senior was known to
hate broccoli; he'd once joked that the reason he became president was so
that nobody could order him to eat it. Others in the White House joked
at the time of the Gulf War that “if Iraq had only a strategic stake in the
world broccoli market, the US would not go near it”.)
For more than a decade after the Gulf War, there was a policy of “con-
taining” Saddam Hussein, enforcing UN resolutions that created “no-fly
zones” in the south and north of Iraq, so that the Iraqi air force could not
bomb Shia in the south or Kurds in the north.
During this period, the US strengthened its military presence in the
region, building bases in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. The cost of imposing
no-fly zones, patrolling the waters of the Gulf, and providing training and
equipment to the region's military totalled some $50-60bn a year. Keeping
