Word: garcia
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Welcome to Diego Garcia - 6,720 acres of restricted military base on a low-lying, depopulated atoll 1,000 miles from the nearest continent. Back in 1966, the U.S. signed a secret agreement with Great Britain allowing the Pentagon to use the Indian Ocean territory as an airbase in exchange for a big discount on Polaris nuclear missiles. Three years later, hundreds of Navy seabees arrived by ship and began pouring out the 12,000-foot runway that would become a bulwark of American Cold War strategy in the region, and a key launching pad for the first and second...
...When I touched down aboard Air Force One with President Bush Tuesday for a 90-minute refueling stop en route from Iraq to Australia, Diego Garcia's esthetic impact was underwhelming: Think early-'70s industrial park for the architecture, and public elementary school for the interior design. But as a 1,700-man springboard for the projection of military might to the far reaches of the world, it rivals anything 18th century Britain or Augustinian Rome ever came up with...
...troubled history and sensitive security role has helped make Diego Garcia pretty much off-limits for journalists. That, in turn, has made it something of a holy-grail dateline for reporters covering the military. Not that I saw much of it. After President Bush deplaned, he was greeted by an honor guard on the tarmac. We were taken 100 yards to a low, beige outbuilding and shown to an auditorium, while Bush met the base commander and some unspecified others. When I tried to leave the building to look around, I was told by some courteous airmen that I didn...
...Qaeda leader Hambali, who is believed to have been held on the island, I at least wanted proof I'd been there. Twenty years ago, Time's Chief of Correspondents, Dick Duncan, offered a case of fine Bordeaux to the first correspondent who filed a legitimate story from Diego Garcia. The equivalent in 2007 media dollars is probably a box of Chablis, but in any case I wanted evidence...
...Just what that means for Capt. Hemming remains to be seen. As he departed Iraq, en route to a quick refueling stop on the island of Diego Garcia before continuing on to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Sydney, Bush brought a small group of reporters up to the conference room at the head of the Air Force One. Its long, oval table, white wall-to-wall carpeting and large flat-screen TV were the converse of the dusty, bare camp the President had just left. I asked him if any service members other than Hemming had raised concerns...