UK to Establish £15M Permanent Mid East Military Base

[Sun Who]

UK to Establish £15M Permanent Mid East Military Base (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30355953)

a) This seems to run contrary to the trend of military spending.
b) It seems cheap for a permanent base.

Sun.

[Party Animal]

I believe it is more a case of the UK MCC moving from the temporary portacabin accommodation that has lasted for years into a brand new building. It certainly isn't the case of a new build Camp Bahrainiston.

[Heathrow Harry]

.... yet.........

[Jimlad1]

Its interesting for a couple of reasons. Mainly because it formalises the dirty little secret that UK presence in the region since 71 has been officially 'temporary' or 'operationally linked'. In other words, we weren't there because it was there, we were there because it was linked to a named Op.

Now its a clear declaration that we are in town permanently, and I suspect it will lead to subtle but important funding changes on how the area is manned and supported.

In reality it is about formalising the extant set up into slightly better buildings, and taking what is a temporary area and making it permanent. Its not about creating the next Portsmouth, although I'm sure others will see it that way.

For way of comparison, the US, French and Australians all operate facilities of a similar size and scope in region already.

[chevvron]

Harold Wilson will be turning in his grave; his government went to great lengths to destroy the worldwide presence of British overseas bases, especially in the oil rich areas, so they could use the money saved to subsidise their nationalisation schemes.

[Union Jack]

It's just not (Ju)fair....:)

Jack

[Pontius Navigator]

Chevvron, actually thought it was to recover from the debt left by the other team.

He actually wanted to retain a presence east of Suez and in 1971 he was not in power and withdrawal occurred under Heath. V-bombers in Cyprus was before Heath.

[sharpend]

And we will be there until the host nation throw us out..... I wonder how long that will be. Just as well we are not paying for the construction.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

The Bahraini Royal Family is only too happy to have a major base, since the UK Government will now have to look the other way whilst they maintain their regime. The cost of the buildings is nothing to obtain this Carte Blanche.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_during_the_Bahraini_uprising_(2011%E2%80%93present)

[ShotOne]

"Just as well we're not paying for construction.." Even if we were this has to represent superb value. We're talking about a small% of the cost of just one warship.

As for the Bahrainis chucking us out, I don't see that happening anytime soon. Of course if they want to take on IS etc on their own...

[Herod]

He actually wanted to retain a presence east of Suez

Aden '67 anyone?

[Pontius Navigator]

Singapore was the east of Suez goal as part of our SEATO commitment.

Aden was an historic colonial outpost; Iran, Pakistan, Bahrain and Oman were sufficient to meet our CENTO role.

[racedo]

The Bahraini Royal Family is only too happy to have a major base, since the UK Government will now have to look the other way whilst they maintain their regime. The cost of the buildings is nothing to obtain this Carte Blanche.

So the reason to get rid of Gadaffi and Assad because they abused their people and there was no Democracy, good job Bahrain doesn't have all of that ..................oh wait

[Wander00]

AFME Lite, then..................

[JW411]

I thought we had already had AFME Lite. We came out of Aden in November 1967 and some of us moved up to Bahrain (I was on 105 Squadron) where we became part of RAFPG (AFME Lite) under the command of Air Commodore Topham. The Navy, of course, were already resident at Jufair.

Harold Wilson's government decided that they could save a lot of money by disbanding 105 Sqn in January 1968 and replacing it with ARDET (Argosy Detachment) which consisted of 6 aircraft and 9 crews. I did no less than 5 detachments (each lasting 3 1/2 months) between January, 1968 and October, 1971 when we moved out of the Gulf.

Luckily, I am far too old to go back. How do you spell deja vu?

[Herod]

How do you spell deja vu? I don't know, but I've seen it somewhere before.

The Aden withdrawal would have been a lot better handled if HMG had stuck to their original promise to keep a presence in the area after independence. It was the decision in (I think) March '67 that there would be no support from HMG after Nov 30th '67 that really opened the can of worms.

[haltonapp]

Like you JW 411 I was there in '68 and I'm also now too old to go back, but I have some fond memories.

[JW411]

Indeed; that is the amazing thing. Despite everything, the morale on ARDET was pretty high. I served on 105, 114 and 267 Sqns (twice) during my 10 years on the Argosy and none of the squadrons have ever had a reunion. As you probably already know, ARDET has held an annual reunion at Benson every single year since we pulled out of the Gulf in October, 1971. This has to be something of a record.

My problem is with the politicians and not with the wonderful people that it was my privilege to serve with.

[Whenurhappy]

Singapore was the east of Suez goal as part of our SEATO commitment.

And subsequently FPDA after SEATO died. What's not that well know is that there is still an RN establishment at Sembawang Naval Basin (well, actually, a DE&S refuelling depot with an NP looking after it). Quite useful it seems, too.

[sandiego89]

I'm sure there is a requirement to use local contractors, and some unique "permit fees", so the 15M will end up buying a cinder block warehouse, a fancy briefing room and perhaps a few flushing toilets?

[JW411]

Flushing Toilets? We can't afford them! What's wrong with using a flat stone? Much more ecological.

[ValMORNA]

And toilet paper? What's wrong with your left hand - go native!

[Sandy Parts]

Good luck to them. About time UK Gov accepted that if we are to go poking our noses in over there as often as we do, we should plan ahead instead of going for the UOR option every time. Shame we didn't do the same at a newly constructed airbase in another ME country not far away. Would have saved about 10 years worth of an ever expanding DOB footprint all in leased portakabins.

[Union Jack]

A "colourful" reflection on the wisdom of creating the phoenix-like Bahrain naval base - and the BBC! - by an allegedly senior pongo will be found in TMS on page 15 of today's Times.:uhoh:

Blue touch paper lit.....:)

Jack