"When U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday morning that the federal government had reached an agreement with Qatar to build a facility at an Air Force base in Idaho, social media posts began popping up online from people across the political spectrum expressing outrage at the concept of a foreign military base on American soil."
"But the facility being built at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho isn't a separate base at all - it is a group of buildings that will be built to handle training and maintenance for Qatari troops - and the agreement with Qatar has been in the works for years. "What we expect is it to be squadron operations and hangars for the F-15QA, because that's the Qatari version of the jet that they bought through foreign military sales," Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said. "It is definitely still a U.S. Air Force base.""
"In fact, on-site training agreements with allies are common in the U.S. The Republic of Singapore 428th Fighter Squadron Buccaneers have been hosted at the base since 2008. German forces trained at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico for decades. New facilities to train international F-35 fighter pilots were completed at Ebbing Air Force Base in Arkansas last year."
The United States and Qatar reached an agreement to construct facilities at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho to support Qatari training and maintenance. The planned buildings will support squadron operations and hangars for the F-15QA, the Qatari variant purchased through foreign military sales. The facility will be situated on active U.S. Air Force property and will not function as a separate foreign base. Mountain Home is about 50 miles southeast of Boise on a high desert plateau, offering extensive airspace for fighter maneuvers. Local construction crews are expected to build the facilities and employ local workers. On-site allied training is common, including Singapore’s 428th Fighter Squadron presence since 2008, long-running German training at Holloman AFB, and recent international F-35 training facilities at Ebbing AFB in Arkansas.
Read at Fortune
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]