Finally in January 2002 ramp construction began.
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While waiting for funding and approval for the ramp project, the RED HORSE troops spent two months doing other base projects, like building the operations center and helping set up the tent city. They had come to begin the largest construction project ever undertaken by a RED HORSE team a $9.1 million military construction project that consisted of building a 1,240- foot by 630-foot concrete ramp with taxiways, shoulders and lighting. Since there was no room in the warehouses for the RED HORSE airmen to sleep, they moved into an expandable shelter on the flightline and lived and worked out of there According to the accounts of the 823rd, the Qatar base "was nothing more than a runway and a field of sand covered by two-dozen tents and a few warehouses". On Octoa rapid-response team of civil engineers, the 823rd RED HORSE Squadron whose specialty is to repair and build structures such as runways and roads in remote areas, arrived. 29, 2001, according to the official records, the first military teams arrived to begin looking the base over in preparation for Operation Enduring Freedom. In response to the attacks, the US presence in the region needed to increase exponentially. The Qatari's gamble paid off with the events of Sept. They were simply playing a waiting game, hoping that eventually the volatile nature of the region would bring the Americans knocking at their door. Although they would later purchase an air force comprised of 12 French Mirage fighter jets, they would never actually station them at Al-Udeid. At the time it was built, Qatar had not yet acquired as much as a single airplane to call the base home.
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THE BUILDING OF AL-UDEID (THE OFFICIAL STORY)Īccording to published reports, the groundwork for what would become Al-Udeid Air Base was first laid at a cost of over one billion dollars in 1996 in an attempt by the Qatari government to lure the American military to set up shop in the small Gulf nation. A look at the building of Al Udied can provide that evidence. Yet finding hard evidence to prove that planning for the war in Iraq was taking place prior to 9-11 has been hard to find. The accounts of Paul O'Neil and Richard Clarke verified that Iraq was a front burner issue for the Administration from the very first day, and only intensified after the attacks. The Downing St Minutes confirmed that the Administration was set on a path to war at least as early as mid-summer of 2002. It has long been accepted knowledge that the Bush Administration was working feverishly towards regime change in Iraq during the 18-month period between 9-11 and the official start of the war in March of 2003. The building of Al Udeid turns out not to be a "miracle in the desert" in response to a heinous attack, as touted by the military, but rather a required step on the path to regime change in Iraq.
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11, and actual work on the base began as early as the spring of 2001. The planning for the mammoth base had in fact taken place long before Sept. The true story of the building of Al-Udeid is actually quite different. A determined military had beaten indeterminate odds to transform a barren wasteland into a state of the art military base in order to "take the war to the terrorists". Published reports and official DOD statements claimed that the amazing transformation was the result of the heroic response of US servicemen to the tragedy of 9-11. What had been in October 2001 "nothing more than a runway and a field of sand covered by two-dozen tents and a few warehouses", the Al Udeid Air Base was transformed in a few short months into one of the largest air bases in the world. Long before the US pullout, a new home for the operations had secretly been built in the deserts of Qatar.