The United States is planning a long-term military relationship with the new government of Iraq that would give the Pentagon access to military bases in the region, according to a report in the The New York Times.
A Pentagon spokesman told journalists he had no information on the report.
The Times online edition quoted US military officials as saying they hoped to maintain four bases in Iraq -- one at the international airport near Baghdad, one at Tallil near Nassiriya in the south, one at an isolated airstrip in the western desert along an old oil pipeline that runs to Jordan, and one at the Bashur air field in the Kurdish north.
The US military already uses the bases to support operations against remnants of the old government, to deliver supplies and relief aid, and for reconnaissance patrols.
As the invasion force turns over control to a new Iraqi government, Pentagon officials expect to gain access to the bases in the event of a future crisis, the newspaper said.
"There will be some kind of a long-term defence relationship with a new Iraq, similar to Afghanistan," it quoted a senior administration official as saying. "The scope of that has yet to be defined -- whether it will be full-up operational bases, smaller forward operating bases or just plain access."
The United States is aware that the growing American presence in the Middle East and Southwest Asia invites charges of empire-building and might create new targets for terrorists, the newspaper said.
And the Pentagon has begun to shrink its military presence in the region.
But since September 11, 2001, there has been a concerted diplomatic and military effort to win permission for U.S. forces to operate from the formerly Communist nations of Eastern Europe, across the Mediterranean, throughout the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, and across Central Asia, from the periphery of Russia to Pakistan's ports on the Indian Ocean.
"The attacks of September 11 changed more than just the terrorism picture," the newspaper quoted a senior administration official as saying. "On September 11, we woke up and found ourselves in Central Asia. We found ourselves in Eastern Europe as never before, as the gateway to Central Asia and the Middle East."