May 24, 2005: US to Have Long-Term Military Presence in Afghanistan

President Bush and Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai sign a “strategic partnership” allowing the US to have a long-term military presence in Afghanistan. The US is allowed to have access to existing military bases and potentially new bases as well. [Agence France-Presse, 5/24/2005] Both the US and Afghanistan government try to avoid talk of permanent US military bases in Afghanistan, because the idea is highly unpopular with the Afghan population. There are about 18,000 foreign troops in the country, half of them American. There also is a NATO-led force of 8,500 peacekeepers in the capital of Kabul. [Reuters, 4/26/2005] Asia Times reports that the US is constructing new military bases in the country, and in fact began work in February 2005. The bases “can be used in due time as a springboard to assert a presence far beyond Afghanistan.” The largest US air base is Afghanistan is located only about 50 miles from the border with Iran, “a location that makes it controversial.” [Asia Times, 3/30/2005]