Most of the planning and coordination for the Air Force's strikes on nuclear sites in Iran was run out of Tampa.
When the initial bombing in Iran was announced, two of the first words Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth uttered were "CENTCOM" and "Tampa." He was referring to U.S. Central Command, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base.
But many people don't know what CENTCOM does.
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To help explain, WUSF spoke with Jim Cardoso, senior director of the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida. He said CENTCOM directs military activities in the Middle East — and has done so for decades.
MacDill AFB was also the operational headquarters for much of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the architect of 9/11. It gained national exposure in 1991 during the first Gulf War under the command of Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
WUSF: Tell us what the role of CENTCOM is and the area that it covers.
CARDOSO: U.S. Central Command is one of several what are called "geographic combatant commands" under the United States Department of Defense.
Each one of them is in charge of a certain region of the Earth, and so any type of military operation that takes place in that region, that geographic combatant command is responsible for planning and executing those operations.
Central Command is in charge of the Middle East. They actually have Egypt, the Middle East, parts of South Asia as well.
It encompasses what we call their area of responsibility. But basically any type of military operation that happens in that area, and that's Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and now, obviously, most recently, Iran, that falls under U.S. Central Command, right here in Tampa.
How much of the planning and coordination of these attacks, like the bombing of the nuclear sites in Iran, was actually done here in Tampa?
Probably the vast majority of it. Central Command is going to have elements that are forward, stationed overseas — less now than there were at the height of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there are still elements that are stationed overseas.
But the vast majority of the planning, you don't have to be in the area to be able to adjust the operation. So a lot of that is going to be done right here by planners, by intelligence, by operational experts and obviously by the leadership, with the four-star commander, Gen. (Erik) Kurilla here, overseeing all the operational planning and execution.
Does the general public really know much about this? If you talk to just the average person in Tampa, they would probably have no clue that a lot of the war planning and coordination is done right here.
Which continues to surprise me to a certain extent. Some people are very familiar. They know that MacDill is here, and they know that these two commands, there's Special Operations Command and Central Command, and not exactly sure what they do, except one has to do with special operations. One has to do with the Middle East. And then some people just have, really, have no idea whatsoever. So it's always good to educate people.
Do you have any idea why these two operations were based in Tampa? What's the draw here? There was really no national security apparatus here before that.
I think a lot of it was historical things before the current combatant command structure really settled in.
The Middle East has always been turbulent. It's always been dynamic. So for years before there was really formalized Central Command, there was a kind of a standing headquarters that the (Department of Defense) had to to deal with. And then I think it just sort of evolved from there, and really Central Command has grown.
I remember the first time I was in Tampa, was from 2001 to 2003, and then I returned in 2012, but even then, I could see that, just driving on base, Central Command had grown a lot more people.
But it would make sense after 9/11. After 9/11, it got supercharged with the amount of military operations going on at the same time. And most, if not all, of the planning and coordination for the Iraq War and maybe the hunt for (Osama) Bin Laden as well, after 9/11, was done right here at MacDill Air Force Base as well.
And if this war widens, which it just may do, Tampa will be the nerve center of the war effort?
It will be. I think pretty much everybody hopes that it doesn't widen. And you know, the actions that the U.S. has taken so far sent the right message. That then leads the discussions about what the next steps are.
But I have no question that Central Command is ready and willing and able to execute the orders of the national leadership for the United States.
Hopefully, it's not a full-time war effort, but if they have a plan in place to be able to do that, if directed to do so.
(Editor's note: After this interview, Israel and Iran accepted a ceasefire plan proposed by President Donald Trump.)
Is there anything else you want to mention about the role of MacDill?
There's a lot that happens here in Tampa from a national security perspective.
I think when people think of national security, they think of, oh, Washington, D.C., and, yeah, OK, that's our nation's capital, and that's the center of government. I got it, but there's a lot that's going on here in Tampa.
And I think it's something that, to me, it really shows how Tampa is not just a growing city — which it is — but it's a growing center of technology, of innovation, of entrepreneurship, but also national security.
Things happen here that are important on the world stage. It's not just pretty beaches and nice weather in the winter, although that's good to make, no mistake. So it's a good place to be right now when the world's a very busy place.
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