US wants permanent access to military bases in post-war Iraq

The United States is planning to use Iraq to maintain a long-term strategic foothold in the Middle East that would include the right to use four of the country's military bases, Bush administration officials said.

George Bush moved to reduce tension with Syria yesterday, saying Damascus was "getting the message" that it should help to facilitate the capture of leading members of the ousted Iraqi regime.

But the plan surfacing in Washington for a "defence relationship" with Iraq goes well beyond the short-term to medium-term demands for security and stabilisation. Such a move would help America to underpin its political, diplomatic and economic pressure on Syria and Iran.

American military officials quoted by The New York Times identified the four bases – including one at Baghdad international airport – as those that have been progressively occupied by US forces in the war. They are currently being used to supply and reinforce operations against remnants of the Saddam regime, for reconnaissance patrols and for supplies of humanitarian aid.

In the longer term, the bases would remain accessible to US warplanes and military transport aircraft. American officials, sensitive to the neuralgic impact on much of the Arab world, stress that Washington will only seek "access" to the airfields rather than permanent "basing". Administration officials were quick to echo assertions by Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, that Washington had "no war plan right now" for Syria and Iran. The putative access to the bases, as well as the US presence in Afghanistan, would come close to surrounding Iran with a ring of US influence.

The American relationship with Iran has been complicated by the war in Iraq, not least by the influence Tehran exerts on sections of Iraq's Shia population. Washington has accused Syria of harbouring fugitives from the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein, and of developing its own chemical weapons programme.

* Jamal Mustafa Sultan, a son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, has surrendered to the Iraqi National Congress, the exiled group said yesterday.