The United States knows of Israel's secret bases in Iraq
Shafaq News- Baghdad/ Washington
Israel operated at least two covert military bases inside Iraq's western desert with US knowledge dating to 2025 or earlier, according to a New York Times investigation published on Sunday, despite a 2008 US-Iraq agreement barring Iraqi territory from being used to launch attacks against other countries.
The investigation, citing senior Iraqi and regional officials, expanded on earlier reporting by The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press by confirming a second Israeli base and detailing what Iraqi officials described as direct American involvement beyond passive awareness. Iraqi security officials told the newspaper that Washington even pressured Baghdad to shut down Iraqi radar systems during both the 12-day war in June 2025 and the current conflict that began on February 28 to “protect US aircraft,” increasing Iraq's reliance on American forces for airspace monitoring while Israeli forces operated inside Iraqi territory.
The first base near Al-Nukhaib was prepared in late 2024 and later used in both conflicts, officials cited by the newspaper said, clarifying that the outpost functioned as a logistical hub for the Israeli Air Force, providing refueling, medical care, special-forces staging, and rescue contingencies for downed pilots while shortening flight distances to targets inside Iran. Iraqi officials also confirmed a second Israeli base elsewhere in the western desert, with open-source satellite imagery dated March 8 showing a 1.6-kilometer airstrip carved into a dry lakebed roughly 180 kilometers southwest of Najaf and Karbala.
According to the NYT, the first base was exposed on March 3 after a 29-year-old Iraqi shepherd, Awad Al-Shammari, drove into the area while heading to buy groceries and encountered helicopters, soldiers, tents, and a landing strip. He contacted Iraq's regional military command before his pickup truck was chased by a helicopter and repeatedly fired upon until it stopped in the desert, and his family later recovered his charred body beside the burned and bullet-riddled vehicle, believing that he was killed because of what he had seen.
An Iraqi reconnaissance unit dispatched to investigate the site later also came under aerial fire, leaving one soldier dead, two wounded, and two military vehicles destroyed before the force withdrew, while a second counterterrorism unit sent afterward stopped short of the area after what Iraqi officials described to the newspaper as an American warning not to approach.
Read more: What happened in the western Iraqi desert and why Baghdad couldn't respond
A senior US military official confirmed to the Times that the outpost was Israeli, describing it as "a temporary staging area or camp to support operations in Iran." However, the 2008 US-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement states that "the United States shall not use Iraqi land, sea, and air as a launching or transit point for attacks against other countries" and ties defense cooperation to respect for Iraqi sovereignty. The agreement remains the legal basis for the continued US military presence in Iraq, with American forces scheduled to complete their withdrawal by September 2026.
The gap between the treaty's text and the conduct described in the reporting has become the central charge inside Iraq's own parliament. Earlier, MP Raed Al-Maliki accused Washington of handing Iraqi airspace to Israel during the war and alleged Iraqi radar systems had been ordered shut down, while Mohammed Al-Shammari, a member of parliament's security and defense committee, described the incident as a "security breach" that could only have occurred under American cover.
Those accusations now sit on the desk of a new government. Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi, who took office on May 14 after months of political deadlock, pledged in his government program to keep Iraq out of regional and international conflict axes and to activate the Strategic Framework Agreement “in a manner that guarantees mutual interests.”
Read more: What does Iraq's new government promise? A guide to Ali Al-Zaidi's ministerial program
