[09/24/02]Land for a U.S. base near where terrorist groups are believed to be headquartered has been leased on behalf of the military by a Vicksburg man.

The land is in Djibouti, a country about the size of Massachusetts on the eastern coast of Africa. It is across a narrow stretch of water from Yemen, which is reportedly one of al-Qaida’s largest strongholds.

“During times of war the military can go in and take what it needs,” said the man who negotiated the lease, Vicksburg District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers realty specialist Bill Miller. “During peacetime, other arrangements need to be made to secure areas and facilities needed to support the military mission.”

Djibouti, a former French colony that is mainly wasteland, has a population of about 460,000, smaller than that of any U.S. state. A major reason military leaders chose it was for its central location, Miller said.

Up to 800 U.S. troops were being deployed to the base, national newspapers said last week.

Just under half the 800 troops were special operations troops trained for stealth attacks to kill or capture suspected terrorists, The New York Times said. The rest include pilots and support personnel, the newspaper said.

Miller negotiated the lease agreement for the military under a status of forces agreement, he said. Such SOFAs are common for the U.S. to have with allies or other potential host countries, he said.

Miller, the only Vicksburg District employee on the mission, negotiated the lease while he was on a three-week deployment to the country, where he said temperatures rose to about 115 degrees.

The contingency real estate team was a result of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, when “the military realized it could not secure facilities without real estate help,” Miller said. The team “makes up the difference” between what is provided for in the agreement and what is needed by the military, he said.

Miller’s work on the Djibouti deal was in support of the Corps’ Southwestern Division, based in Dallas, Texas, to which U.S. Central Command, based in Tampa, Fla., delegated real estate support responsibility.

“They provide us with a list of requirements,” Miller said. “Our job is to fulfill those requirements as best we can.” Requirements for a base may include space for staging areas, equipment parking, warehouses, barracks, bivouacking facilities, cold storage, port facilities, camps and air fields, Miller said.

In the case of Djibouti, the negotiation was only with the military of the country, whose laws are similar to those of France, Miller said.

That hasn’t been the case in all six of his deployments, however. Miller, a 22-year veteran of the Corps’ realty services group, said property ownership in other countries to which he has been deployed since 1990, has been more difficult to verify.

“In a lot of emerging countries, all real estate is owned by the state,” he said. “We went in and established two base camps in Kosovo (during NATO military operations there around 1999). All land records had been destroyed by the former Yugoslavian government. Therefore, there was no record of ownership. In a case like that what we do is we attempt to document our occupation of lands in case there is a claim filed in the future.”

In most of the countries emerging from communism, people occupying land are doing so with the permission of the governments and are recognized as tenants, not owners, Miller said.

“Privatization of land in former communist countries is just now being exercised,” he said.

Normally during peacetime, Miller handles real-estate duties involving the Corps’ extensive holdings and interests around the Vicksburg District, which covers parts of Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas.

Miller’s other overseas deployments have included support of the Corps’ Mid-Atlantic Division, he said.

Corps real-estate specialists, of which Miller said about 26 are based in Vicksburg, also typically provide real estate expertise to other government agencies, responding to natural disasters and other situations.