The UK government is refusing to give details about US military personnel stationed at air bases in Britain amid fears Donald Trump is preparing to bomb Iran or Greenland.
Asked how many Americans were stationed at 13 bases in Britain which host the US military, armed forces minister Al Carns would only say there were “approximately 11,000” in total.
“In the interests of personnel security, I will not currently share specific numbers of US [visiting forces] personnel at each individual site,” Carns has said in response to a parliamentary question.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) detailed as recently as 2024 how many US military personnel were located at UK sites, but declined to comment on Monday about why it has not done so now.
Declassified also asked the MoD to clarify what UK authorisation was required for the US to launch a military attack from Britain. The MoD did not offer an on the record comment.
The government has recently said that any US operation from a base in the UK “is considered on a case-by-case basis”.
Among several national and international agreements, the NATO Status of Forces Agreement and the Visiting Forces Act are understood to govern US military operations in the UK.
Previous UK governments have stated that the operational use of US bases in Britain “is a matter for joint decision”.
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Wall of secrecy
Successive UK governments have maintained a wall of secrecy around the US sites in Britain, which are called ‘Royal Air Force’ bases.
In recent years, for example, UK ministers have refused to answer parliamentary questions about US military operations conducted from these bases, the number of US intelligence officials hosted at the sites, and even about whether the US has deployed nuclear weapons to them.
The lack of clarity around US operations in the UK comes as two party leaders have questioned the future of the military alliance in light of Trump’s threats to seize Greenland “the easy way or the hard way”.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey called last week for sanctions on Trump’s personal commercial empire and a parliamentary debate on Britain’s hosting of US forces if Greenland were attacked.
“I wish I didn’t have to say any of this, but It’s time we started taking Trump’s threats seriously,” Davey said.
On Monday, Green party leader Zack Polanski called for the government to urgently review “how we might remove US bases from British soil while maintaining our own security”.
Another war?
The debate over US military sites in Britain is taking place amid evidence of those bases being used for an American military build-up in the Middle East, possibly for a strike on Iran.
On Sunday and Monday, four US military transport aircraft departed from the US air base at Lakenheath in Suffolk with their destination believed to be the Muwaffaq Salti air base in Jordan.
These planes arrived from the giant US base at Ramstein, Germany. Eight US C-17 transport aircraft arrived at Lakenheath over the weekend from Ramstein.
Reports also suggest the US is deploying at least 12 F-15 fighter aircraft and four KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refuelling aircraft from Lakenheath to the Jordan base.
The aircraft appear to be drawn from the US Air Force’s 48th Fighter Wing, which is based across Lakenheath and RAF Feltwell, in Norfolk, and which hosts nearly 7,000 active-duty personnel, according to the US military.
The RAF also sent a military transport A400 Airbus to Tel Aviv on Monday which followed the despatch last week of an A332 Airbus to Beersheba, next to Israel’s main air force base at Nevatim.
Britain has also been sending military transport aircraft to Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia during the past week, although it is unclear whether these are routine flights.
