Ras Banas (Greek: Lepte Akra, Egyptian Arabic: راس بناس pronounced [ɾɑːs bæˈnæːs]) is a peninsula in Egypt extending into the Red Sea.
[3] In July 1972, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, seeking to establish good relations with the United States, ordered the Soviets to leave.
[4] In February 1979, Anwar El Sadat encouraged Harold Brown, the United States Secretary of Defense of the time, to consider using the peninsula as a US naval and air facility.
[5] The location of Ras Banas allowed it to potentially serve as a staging area for Persian Gulf operations and for other Middle Eastern and North African contingencies.
[7] However, due to the absence of a written agreement by Egypt and the subsequent lack of approval for funding of the project at the time, the plans were dropped.
[8] Egypt had reservations over the construction of a formal CENTCOM base on the site due to worries that this may form the subject of violence from radical Arabs.
[11] Of the costs being put forward for the development of Ras Banas, these included $7 million being given from the Secretary of Defense's contingency funds to establish construction mobilisation activities in 1982.
[12] However, by 1985, when Europe refused to fund Egypt's regeneration of Ras Banas as a military base, the United States decided to abandon their ambitious project altogether.