I just noticed the footnotes in the German article. There are links to details about all these bases at Globalsecurity.org.
For example, about
Balad AB, it states:
Balad occupies a 25 square kilometer site and is protected by a 20 kilometers security perimeter. According to the "Gulf War Air Power Survey, there were 39 hardened aircraft shelters. At the each end of the main runway are hardened aircraft shelters knowns as "trapezoids" or "Yugos" which were build by Yugoslavian contractors some time prior to 1985.
So we now know that this "gigantic" AB was already around 20 years ago.
More:
It is the largest and busiest aerial port operation in all of Iraq. In a typical month at Balad, as much cargo and five times as many people move through there as does through Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
More:
As of Febuary 2006, Balad AB was home to about 25,000 U.S. troops.
The base is so large it has its own 'neighborhoods'. These include: 'KBR-land' (a Halliburton subsidiary company); 'CJSOTF' which is home to a special operations unit,' the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force and is surrounded by especially high walls that is, according to The Washington Post, so secretive that even the base Army public affairs chief has never been inside. There is a Subway sandwich shop, a Pizza Hut, a Popeye's, a 24-hour Burger King, two post exchanges which sell an impressive array of goods, four mess halls, a minature golf course and a hospital. The base has a strictly enforced on-base speed limit of 10 MPH.
Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, told the House Armed Services Committee in March 2004 that ". . . we are making Balad Airfield our primary hub in the region, and the idea of doing that is because we need to have the Baghdad International Airport revert to civilian control."
I'll stop over here. It seems to me that the size or materials of this airbase is indicative of prior announcements of the US' plans to remain in Iraq for several years. How much is several? I don't believe that these bases serve as any proof of the US' planning in advance to hunker down for a decade or more.