{"id":281893,"date":"2016-09-30T19:10:42","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T23:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/?p=281893"},"modified":"2020-11-01T19:17:51","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T00:17:51","slug":"u-s-military-is-building-a-100-million-drone-base-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/mn\/u-s-military-is-building-a-100-million-drone-base-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. military is building a $100 million drone base in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"
RAEL\u2019S COMMENT:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n
Another imperialist move!<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A new base outside Agadez, Niger, will host a fleet of MQ-9 drones and serve as a regional hub for U.S. counter-terror missions.<\/p>\n

FROM HIGH ABOVE, Agadez almost blends into the cocoa-colored wasteland that surrounds it. Only when you descend farther can you make out a city that curves around an airfield before fading into the desert. Once a nexus for camel caravans\u00a0hauling\u00a0tea and salt across the Sahara, Agadez is now a West African paradise for people smugglers and a way station for refugees and\u00a0migrants\u00a0intent on reaching Europe\u2019s shores by any means necessary.<\/p>\n

Africans\u00a0fleeing\u00a0unrest and poverty are not, however, the only foreigners making their way to this town in the center of Niger. U.S. military documents reveal new information about an American drone base under construction on the outskirts of the city. The long-planned project \u2014 considered the most important U.S. military construction effort in Africa, according to formerly secret files obtained by The Intercept through the Freedom of Information Act \u2014 is slated to cost $100 million, and is just one of a number of recent American military initiatives in the\u00a0impoverished\u00a0nation.<\/p>\n

The base is the latest sign, experts say, of an ever-increasing emphasis on counterterror operations in the north and west of the continent. As the only country in the region willing to allow a U.S. base for MQ-9 Reapers \u2014 a newer, larger, and potentially more lethal model than the venerable Predator drone \u2014 Niger has positioned itself to be the key regional hub for U.S. military operations, with Agadez serving as the premier outpost for launching intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions against a plethora of terror groups.<\/p>\n

For years, the U.S. operated from an air base in Niamey, Niger\u2019s capital, but in early 2014, Capt. Rick Cook, then chief of U.S. Africa Command\u2019s Engineer Division, mentioned the potential for a new \u201csemi-permanent \u2026 base-like facility\u201d in Niger.\u00a0That September, the Washington Post\u2019s Craig Whitlock exposed plans to base drones at Agadez.\u00a0Within days, the U.S. Embassy in Niamey announced that AFRICOM was, indeed, \u201cassessing the possibility of establishing a temporary, expeditionary contingency support location\u201d there. The outpost, according to the communiqu\u00e9, \u201cpresents an attractive option from which to base ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) assets given its proximity to the threats in the region and the complexity of operating with the vast distance of African geography.\u201d<\/p>\n

Air Force documents submitted to Congress in 2015\u00a0note\u00a0that the U.S. \u201cnegotiated an agreement with the government of Niger to allow for the construction of a new runway and all associated pavements, facilities, and infrastructure adjacent to the Niger Armed Force\u2019s Base Aerienne 201 (Airbase 201) south of the city of Agadez.\u201d When the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2016 was introduced last April, embedded in it was a $50 million request for the construction of an \u201cairfield and base camp at Agadez, Niger \u2026 to support operations in western Africa.\u201d\u00a0When President Obama signed the defense bill, that sum was\u00a0authorized.<\/p>\n

Reporting by The Intercept found the true cost to be double that sum. In addition to the $50 million to \u201cconstruct Air Base 201,\u201d another $38 million in operation and maintenance (O&M) funds was\u00a0slated to be spent \u201cto support troop labor and ancillary equipment,\u201d according to a second set of undated, heavily redacted, formerly secret documents obtained from U.S. Africa Command by The Intercept. But the $38 million O&M price tag \u2014 for expenses like fuel and troops\u2019 per diem \u2014 has already jumped to $50 million, according to new figures provided by the Pentagon, while sustainment costs are now projected at $12.8 million per year.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2016\/09\/29\/u-s-military-is-building-a-100-million-drone-base-in-africa\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAEL\u2019S COMMENT: Another imperialist move!  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":281895,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/mn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/mn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/mn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/mn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/mn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/mn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/mn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/mn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/mn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/mn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}