As the U.S. Draws Down Troops in Afghanistan, It's Quietly Building Up in Other Places

As the U.S. Draws Down Troops in Afghanistan, It’s Quietly Building Up in Other Places

Posted: July 27th, 2021

By Walter Pincus

Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Walter Pincus is a contributing senior national security columnist for The Cipher Brief. He spent forty years at The Washington Post, writing on topics that ranged from nuclear weapons to politics. He is the author of Blown to Hell: America's Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders. Pincus won an Emmy in 1981 and was the recipient of the Arthur Ross Award from the American Academy for Diplomacy in 2010. He was also a team member for a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 and the George Polk Award in 1978.

Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Walter Pincus is a contributing senior national security columnist at The Cipher Brief. He spent forty years at The Washington Post, writing on topics from nuclear weapons to politics. He is the author of Blown to Hell: America’s Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders (releasing November 2021)

OPINION — The United States appears to be adding to its military presence in Israel at the same time the Pentagon is reducing American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and pulling Patriot anti-missile batteries from a handful of Arab countries.

The U.S. Air Force European Command has been constructing a “Combined Joint Operation Center (CJOC)” located on a closed area of the Israeli Air Force’s Hatzor Air Base in central Israel, according to a contract solicitation that seeks bids by tomorrow, July 28, for a roofing contractor to finish work on the project.

The single-story 7,400-square-foot building will have desks for 152 staff members and two meeting rooms, according to an earlier contract award document reviewed by Janes.

On June 15, U.S. Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 11 published images on its Facebook page showing the pouring of concrete for the walls of a building at the Hatzor base.

As has been past policy, neither the U.S. nor Israeli spokespersons would say who would staff the facility. But for decades, the U.S. has quietly been adding to military facilities it operates jointly and separately in Israel.

Reinforcing the close military ties between the two countries, the U.S.-Israel exercise called Juniper Falcon 2021-2 began last Friday at various locations in Israel, including Hatzor Air Base.

The exercise continues JF21, which took place over two weeks in February, but was held virtually because of COVID-19 concerns. The focus at that time was “how the two militaries would work together to confront a ballistic missile attack on the state of Israel,” according to The Times of Israel.

The new exercise now underway “is designed to test simulated emergency response procedures, ballistic missile defense and crisis response assistance in the defense of Israel,” according to a U.S. European Command press release.

The last Juniper Falcon exercise in 2019 involved some 300 U.S. troops and 400 Israelis. It, too, simulated deployment of the U.S. forces to assist with missile defense of Israel.

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Construction of the JCOP at Hatzor Air Base is just the latest American military facility constructed in Israel.

Back in 2009, the U.S. built an installation atop Mt. Keren, deep in the Negev Desert, that contained an AN/TPY-2 X-Band radar that was integrated into several regional and international ballistic missile defense systems.

It could monitor Iranian air space some 1,000 miles away, but also warn the Americans if the Israelis have set off a strike against Tehran, or any other country.

Manned by upwards of 100 Americans, the radar facility is considered the only semi-acknowledged U.S. base in Israel.

Israeli sensitivity about having U.S. military facilities in that country was illustrated in September 2017, with the breaking ground for a new U.S. installation on Bislach Air Base, site of the Bisl’a Aerial Defense School.

The U.S. area would house 40 American troops serving the missile defense mission and provide them with a place to sleep, a dining facility and recreation area. “The building will function as a living facility for U.S. servicemembers, who are currently working at the Israeli base,” a European Command spokeswoman said at the time.

Brig. Gen. Tzvika Haimovitch, head of the IAF’s Aerial Defense Command, told reporters at the opening of the facility that the permanent presence of a U.S. base on Israeli soil sends a “message to the region and our surroundings that our partnership with our friend the United States is important.”

He added, “We established an American base in the State of Israel, in the Israel Defense Forces, for the first time, with an American flag.”

Maj. Gen. John Gronski, deputy commander of US Army National Guard in Europe, said the base “symbolizes the strong bond that exists between the United States and Israel.”

One day later, European Command denied it was an American base, calling it a “Living Facility.”

Since the 1990s the United States has stored pre-positioned military equipment in Israel, agreeing back in 2014 to stock it with up to $1.8 billion worth of munitions, vehicles and other military equipment for US Marines, Special Forces, and Air Force aircraft, including an estimated $500 million worth of ammunition

Called War Reserve Stockpile Ammunition-Israel, or WRSA-I, the material is stored in at least at least three locations called Sites 51, 53, and 54 in Israel, according to Global Security. The specific locations are classified and highly sensitive, but since the material is still owned by the U.S., there must be Americans based in Israel managing the facilities.

In February 2019, according to a Congressional Research Service report, “as part of the bilateral military exercise Juniper Falcon 2019, officers from the 405th Army Field Support Brigade simulated a transfer of munitions from the WRSA-I to Israeli Defense Forces control.”

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Meanwhile, based on a memorandum of understanding between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government, the U.S. pledged to deliver over ten years beginning in 2018 $33 billion in foreign military funds and $5 billion in missile defense funding for FY2019–2028, the largest totals in the history of these MOUs.

The June visit to Washington of new Israeli Defense Minister Benny Ganz was said to include a U.S. funding to replace some of Israel’s Iron Dome interceptors, used to knock down rockets fired at Israel by Hamas militants last month.

The Ganz visit also saw a lowering of former Netanyahu provocative rhetoric toward the U.S. rejoining the nuclear deal with Iran. Ganz told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, “Our dialogue is so important to assuring that any deal effectively meets its goal of keeping Iran away from nuclear weapons.”

It’s clear the Biden Administration is attempting to quiet down Israel’s objections to a possible Washington deal with Iran by moving ahead with the Combined Joint Operation Center at Hatzor Air Base (agreed to during the Trump administration), holding the Juniper Falcon 2021-2 exercises, and entertaining restocking Iron Dome interceptor missiles.

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