The Pentagon evaded Congress by building bases under exercise cover

Evidence

“When Congress refused to fund the construction of new military bases in Honduras, the Pentagon built them anyway,” explains the historian William LeoGrande. Often they used military exercises as a cover. “When the exercises were over, the improved facilities and leftover supplies could be given to the Hondurans and the Contras.” Elsewhere, the military and CIA used Honduran bases to provide the Contras with supplies Congress hadn’t authorized and simply told Congress otherwise. By decade’s end, Honduras was “little more than a vast U.S. military base” and “a virtual U.S. protectorate.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 289

Categorization

• SEED: Angles for a piece on how military exercises function as a legal loophole allowing unappropriated base construction and authorization circumvention.