Links
At Iraqi border outpost, a US-Iran game of 'spy vs. spy'
This windswept U.S. garrison on Iraq's border with Iran has no running water and sporadic mail service, and it's so easily overlooked that the military accidentally canceled its contract for portable toilets last month, forcing the 60 soldiers who live here to resort to disposable waste bags for a while.
Yet Joint Security Station Wahab, which service members recently voted "the most austere base" in southern Iraq, is expected to remain after most of the American super bases in the country close. That's because the soldiers here are on the front line of the U.S. military's efforts to track and counter Iranian influence, a mission that's going to get harder as the area's al Sheeb border station opens to thousands of Iranian tourists in the next few months.
As the U.S. military dismantles much larger bases elsewhere, the ones with fast-food outlets, beauty salons and Eastern European masseuses, commanders plan to keep the small border contingent in place as long as possible. Its job: to train Iraqi forces to protect al Sheeb and its environs, a 25-mile land mine-dotted stretch with deserts to the north and marshes to the south.