Years Before Prince Sultan Attack, U.S. Officials Sounded Alarm About Gulf Bases

U.S. military commanders were worried in recent years that the bases they were using in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states would be vulnerable to Iranian missile and drone attacks. They proposed stationing key aircraft during a conflict in the western part of the kingdom, a safer distance away from Tehran.

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“There is a consequence of not being able to operate from a western defense network location, which would have provided us with some additional standoff from Iranian capabilities,” said Thomas Bergeson, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who served as the deputy commander of Central Command, which is responsible for the U.S. in the Middle East. “Your options are more limited, and therefore you have to take a little more risk than perhaps you would have wanted to.”

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Officials said Frank McKenzie, the Marine general who led Central Command from 2019 to 2022, broached the topic with Pentagon officials during his tenure, arguing that the U.S. could get Saudi Arabia to pay for much of the cost.

Commanders not only wanted to have more bases farther from Iran to deploy aircraft where they might be less vulnerable, they also wanted to be able to bring equipment and forces to the western part of the kingdom without having to pass through the Strait of Hormuz to Saudi ports in the Persian Gulf. Army Gen. Eric Kurilla, who led Central Command from 2022 to 2025, continued to advocate for that idea after McKenzie retired, according to former Pentagon officials.

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“More air bases in western Saudi Arabia would add depth, dispersal, survivability, and avoid the Hormuz chokepoint,” said David Deptula, a retired Air Force three-star general who is the dean of the Mitchell Institute. “They wouldn’t be invulnerable, but air bases are also very hard to shut down.”

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But McKenzie has continued to argue after retiring from the military that this isn’t enough. In an October 2024 article in Military Times, he wrote that the U.S. should work with Saudi Arabia and countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Oman to identify bases that are farther away from Iran.

“The number of Iranian weapons that could reach them would be significantly reduced, warning times would be increased and the Iranians would have a targeting problem in ascertaining from which bases U.S. aircraft operated,” he wrote.

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