The U.S. has abandoned plans to build military bases in Bulgaria and Romania due to budget cuts, said Donald Campbell, commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, according to Agerpres.
StandartNews site notes, in turn, that the United States have closed last week the barracks in Heidelberg, Germany. They will also close down by 2015, the Mannheim garrison and bases in Schweinfurt and Bamberg. In this way, the Pentagon will remain with seven major bases in Europe: 5 in Germany / Wiesbaden, Grafenwoehr, Kaiserslautern and Stuttgart Ansbach /, one in Italy / Vicenza / and one in Belgium.
The U.S. Army will close two other bases in Germany in 2015 and will drop what used to be some ambitious plans to put garrison troops in Bulgaria, because they have to stay within budget, said the military commander of U.S. Army Europe on Thursday quoted by military .com
"We were at 213,000 in 1989," Lt. Gen. Donald Campbel said of the number of Army troops based in Europe, but the troop strength now was 32,000 and was projected to go to 30,000 by 2017”, he added.
Times have changed," Campbell said of the evolving U.S. military commitment to Europe. But that doesn't mean Europe is not important. It's a great launching pad to get to different parts of the world," he said.
Campbell said an Army force of 32,000 could still accomplish the mission of supporting NATO, providing for Europe's security and being ready to respond to contingencies, particularly in support of Army Gen. David Rodriguez as head of the Africa command.
One of Campbell's main tasks now is to support the 400 U.S. troops manning Patriot missile batteries in Turkey to defend the NATO ally against the threat of air attack from Syria.
Last week, USAEUR closed the Staff Sgt. Charles L. Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg, Germany, which had served as the 7th Army headquarters since 1952. The garrison at Mannheim, Germany, which once housed 8,500 soldiers, has already been closed and Campbell said that bases in Schweinfurt and Bamberg, also in Germany, would close in 2015.
During a conference with reporters in his new general headquarters in Wiesbaden, Campbell also said that the plans to set up military bases in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria and Romania, were dropped.
"We won't build those bases at those locations," Campbell said. The Army will still hold exercises with the Bulgarians, but will not rotate brigades through there”.
At the height of the U.S. military presence in Europe in 1953, the U.S. had 450,000 troops from all the services in Europe operating at 1,200 sites.