Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.04.2006, Blaðsíða 19

On March 15th, the US State Depart-
ment made an announcement that brought a
decades-long chapter in Icelandic history to a
close and left its future even more uncertain:
effective October 2006, the NATO base in
Keflavík will be reduced to little more than
a few “submarine talkers,” with US forces
withdrawing their four F-15s, their helicop-
ter squadron and the vast majority of their
personnel.
Response from the Icelandic government
was mixed. Prime Minister Halldór Ásgríms-
son expressed surprise and disappointment
(although he would later state that he expected
the close to happen), while chairman of the
Leftist-Green Party – which never wanted the
base in Iceland to begin with – Steingrímur
J. Sigfússon was decidedly jubilant. From
all sides, proposals have come of different
scenarios for Iceland’s defence, whether it be
increasing the staffing of Iceland’s SWAT
team, the Víkingasveit or appealing to other
NATO countries for assistance.
But the way in which the base’s departure
truly makes Iceland vulnerable is economically
– over 700 Icelanders work on the base itself.
Counting outside contractors, the number
approaches 1,000 people in a region of the
country sorely lacking in job opportunities.
Couple this with all the services the base cur-
rently provides for – services that the Icelandic
government is now going to have to pay for it-
self – and the economic burden becomes even
greater. And the Icelanders with whom the
Grapevine spoke aren’t particularly optimistic
that their elected officials have a real plan in
place.
Iceland joined NATO in 1949 with the
understanding that it would not have to de-
velop a military of its own. Built in 1951, the
NATO base at Keflavík has provided for the
defence of the country and was an important
outpost during the Cold War. Since the fall
of the Soviet Union and the rise of military
conflicts in the Middle East, however, the
location has lost a lot of its relevance, and with
military spending for the war in Iraq reach-
ing into the hundreds of billions of dollars, it
began to appear an unnecessary expense. As
Deputy Chief of Mission for the US Embassy
in Iceland Philip Kosnett told the Grape-
vine that by 2003 the US government came
to the conclusion that, “airplanes weren’t an
appropriate defence for Iceland. The Icelandic
government disagreed. We analysed the situa-
tion and came to our own conclusions.”
Just last year, stronger indications that the
base would soon close came out. In the sum-
mer of 2005, the US government closed 11
bases in Germany alone. In October, discus-
sions regarding the base had been downgraded
from the US State Department to Assistant
National Security Advisor Steve Hadley. This
transition is telling – the State Department,
long a staunch ally of the NATO base in
Iceland, was handing the matter over to the
budget-conscious Department of Defence.
Who Will Save Us From The Crazed
Motorcycle Gangs? Europe.
Despite the fact that NATO Secretary
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced on
March 20th that he was working to resolve
the dispute between the US and Iceland, no
one seems to be able to agree on what new
form Iceland’s defence should take.
Leftist-Green Party chairman Stein-
grímur Sigfússon told the Grapevine on
March 16th that increased staffing of both the
police and the Víkingasveit should be defence
enough for Iceland, adding, “Who is going
to invade us? We’re not talking about being
defenceless. If, for example, a crazed motor-
cycle gang came here and ran amok, we need
to have an organised force that can deal with
that. What we don’t need is an air force and a
base full of soldiers.”
Others, such as former Foreign Minis-
ter Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson, have taken a
broader approach. Along with other members
of the Social Democratic Party, he formed
a committee called “Independent Foreign
Policy.” While none of their proposals have
been finalised, Hannibalsson told the Grape-
vine that Iceland’s defence should be based,
both at home and abroad, on “analysing our
own capacity for ensuring civil security, which
includes analysing our weaknesses and our
points of contact. But this also means coming
into discussions with neighbouring countries
such as Denmark, Holland and Norway for
assistance with our national defence.” In ad-
dition, the committee hopes to chart a new
foreign policy for Iceland, seemingly indepen-
dent of American inf luence.
“We have to look at our own national
interests,” he told the Grapevine. “And this
means supporting solutions based on inter-
national laws and treaties, forming closer ties
with Nordic countries as well as the rest of
Europe and to stop being passengers going
along with US foreign policy, such as we did
with the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq.”
Looking towards other NATO countries
seems to be precisely what the ruling coali-
tion is driving at, with Ásgrímsson telling
the Icelandic media on March 26th, “We’re a
European people and the decision of the US to
withdraw defence from Keflavík encourages
Iceland towards Europe and away from North
America.”
Despite these strong words, the Foreign
Minister has demonstrated a considerable
amount of denial when it comes defence rela-
tions with the United States. After a meet-
ing on 31 March between 26 representatives
of the US State Department, Department
of Defence and the Icelandic government,
the US reiterated what it had said from the
time the announcement was made about two
weeks previous: the defence agreement will be
honoured, but the base is going to be down-
sized. Undeterred, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Geir H. Haarde told the press that, “We will
of course continue to have talks with other
NATO countries, but I don’t consider it real-
istic that any other country take this [defence]
role besides the US.” Of course, this statement
was made after he’d already exhausted talks
with Norway, France, Denmark, Germany
and Russia. Haarde even hinted that the
Icelandic government would cover the base’s
costs if it meant keeping them here, telling
reporters that the cost of Iceland’s defence
“isn’t that much.” The US military currently
spends about 250 million USD (nearly 3.6 bil-
lion ISK) per year on the base. At the time of
this writing, the dismantling of base facilities
has already begun.
One-Thousand More Commuters Should
Ease the Oil Demand
While the future of Iceland’s defence remains
uncertain, the more immediate threat to
the country is that many of the nearly 1,000
The Ghost Town on the Coast
Collateral damage from the base’s departure

by paul f. nikolov photos by gúndi
“We’re a European people and the decision of the US
to withdraw defence from Keflavík encourages Iceland
towards Europe and away from North America,” Prime
Minister Halldór Ásgrímsson.
>>> continues on next page
19