THE US IS PUTTING ON LINE THREE NEW MILITARY OBJECTS IN AZERBAIJAN
by Movsun Gadzhiyev (Baku)

Source: Moscow News, No 10, March 24 – 31, 2006, p. 14

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
March 29, 2006 Wednesday

The role of azerbaijan in the american plans of a military operation
Against Iran; Analysis of the role reserved for Afghanistan in American
military plans.

A group of US AF officers walked Baku all week long. The Yankees had
come to the capital of Azerbaijan to attend a seminar with quite an
interesting name, “Airspace Control”. Who, how, and by what means is
going to control Azerbaijani airspace? Answer to the question was
given by the local authorities when they announced the opening of
two new radar installations on the territory of the country – one in
Astara in the south, the other near Khachmaz on the Russian-Azerbaijani
border. Both radars were built by the US Army and, according to Baku,
turned over to Azerbaijan within the framework of the bilateral
treaty “On mutual assistance in the war on the terrorist threat”
signed in 2001. In any case, both radars are being put on line at
this moment precisely, when the American-Iranian relations are at
their all-time low.

The Americans and Azerbaijanis are also rebuilding the old Soviet
radar station near the town of Akstafa from which specialists say
the USSR eavesdropped on all satellite-linked communications from
Turkey to India. Experts believe that the radars will be geared to
keep an electronic eye on the Caucasus, Armenia, and Iran. Technically
speaking, it is not a problem at all.

As a matter of fact, there is more to the military-technical
cooperation between Washington and Baku than the radars alone.

Several military airfields were modernized in Azerbaijan in the
space of the last several years – in Nasosnoye, Kyurdamir, Yevlakh,
Lenkoran, and Saljan. The runways were reconstructed first and
foremost, and the airfields can receive heavy American bombers and
transports now. Territories for construction of missile bases have
been allocated on the southern borders of Azerbaijan – in the environs
of the towns of Astara and Lerik. Granted the status of classified
objects, they are faithfully guarded by the Internal Troops now.

The Azerbaijani authorities have not yet bothered with any coherent
response to media reports on the American military presence in the
country. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry keeps calling the radars
and bases “just military aid” under the 2001 treaty. It never misses
a chance to point out that the American and Azerbaijani military work
there “side by side.” What for? Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister
Araz Azimov does not rule out the possibility that the republic may
become involved “in various programs within the framework of the
counter-terrorism coalition…”

Materials by Scott Ritter, former UN inspector in Iran, posted on the
web site of Al-Jazeera only added fuel to the fire of speculations and
innuendo. Ritter wrote in his article “America’s War With Iran Is On”
that “… the US Army is building an operational bridgehead on the
northern borders of Iran, in nearby Azerbaijan, to make the task of
overrunning Tehran easier.” According to Ritter, the West may fail to
see what US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld finds in Azerbaijan,
but Russia and the Caucasus know what Rumsfeld’s interest is. The
matter concerns the role Azerbaijan will be playing in the upcoming
war on Iran. The USSR once used the ties between the Northerners
and the Southerners, the Iranians and the Azerbaijanis, to gather
sensitive information and so on in the Cold War period. It is the
CIA that is deploying this tactic now. Its instructors and advisors
discuss with the Azerbaijani military establishment of joint fast
response forces and special reconnaissance teams for operations in
Iran. Ritter maintains that teams are supposed, among other things,
foment a confrontation between the Iranian intelligentsia and religious
leadership.

Ritter claims as well that the US intends to use airfields in
Azerbaijan for air raids against Tehran and other Iranian cities.

Neither shall we forget the advantages offered by the shortest possible
road to Tehran – a highway along the Caspian Sea coast.

It is clear that American military strategists are already designing
scenarios of a military operation against Iran with Azerbaijan’s
involvement that may include deployment of multipurpose forces on
the territory of the republic.

VERBATIM

Eldar Orudzhev, the head of the oppositionist Movement Against Tyranny:

In fact, establishment of US military bases is already under way. De
facto, that is. Three radar installations cannot be called humanitarian
or commercial enterprises by any stretch of the imagination. The only
question is to what extent Washington intends to use Azerbaijan. The
United States has a secret pact with President Ilham Aliyev on the
use of the territory of Azerbaijan in a war against Iran. It was this
pact with the Americans that permitted Aliyev to win the parliamentary
election and neutralize the opposition when he thwarted the Georgian
and Ukrainian scenarios in Azerbaijan.