Qatar coming to Idaho for military aircraft trainings. Here's what we know

BOISE, Idaho — Word about a new facility at Mountain Home Air Force Base to train Qatari fighter pilots spread rapidly when it was teased a week ago, but details of the sudden U.S. Defense Department deal have remained limited.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement took many by surprise, including Idaho’s governor and federal lawmakers who weren’t informed ahead of time. And it was criticized across the political spectrum, with a number of prominent right-wing Republicans questioning what came off as the U.S. permitting the Middle East nation to establish an air base in Idaho.

“To my knowledge, none of us had a heads-up on this,” Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, told KIDO radio this week. “So I know a little bit, I don’t know a lot. But I can tell you that I have concerns.”

Hegseth and others in President Donald Trump’s administration were forced to spend days clearing up that Qatar would not be building a base in the U.S., and instead was welcomed by the 366th Fighter Wing in Idaho only to train. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News it was “largely a fake story.”

“With countries that we work with, we have relationships where sometimes their pilots work on our bases, sometimes that we train together,” he said. “But we’re not going to let a foreign country have an actual base on American soil.”

The plan is eight years in the making, after the U.S., during Trump’s first term, completed a $12 billion agreement with Qatar in June 2017 for 36 scaled-down F-15s plus training, Bloomberg reported at the time. Col. Michael Perez, group commander of the 366th Maintenance Group at the base in Mountain Home, said at a news conference Tuesday that the Air Force would be hosting the Qataris as part of that agreement.

Since 2009, the base in Mountain Home has hosted a contingent of F-15 pilots from Singapore in the 428th Fighter Squadron under a similar agreement. At least four other arrangements of its kind between the U.S. and other foreign nations exist across the country, Fulcher said in his radio interview.

Mountain Home is one of only two U.S. bases that house a similar model of the fighter jet Qatar is buying, and that country’s military leadership wanted to conduct the training — including maintenance and operations — at one of those locations, the Idaho Statesman previously reported. The base south of Boise offered more room to expand, so became the preferred option.

A dozen of the F-15s Qatar purchased would be stored at the base during the 10-year deal, which could be extended by another decade, according to a final environmental analysis from March 2022. Hangars and facilities for storage, maintenance and operations would be built on base to accommodate the additional aircraft.

The military project analysis documents, which includes several alternatives, are an estimate, but remain accurate for planning purposes, an Air Force spokesperson told the Statesman. A member of the Air Force based in Mountain Home previously estimated the project’s cost “in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Construction will be funded by Qatar through the Defense Department’s Foreign Military Sales program, though an updated cost figure is not currently available. But the project “cleared congressional review” in April 2025, with a final price tag expected in the coming weeks, according to an email from the 366th Fighter Wing to Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s office obtained by the Statesman through a public records request.

All new facilities at the base will be owned and operated by the Mountain Home Air Force base, a spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, wrote to Little’s office. Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Little were among those in Idaho leadership whom the Trump administration left in the dark about plans to bring Qataris to Mountain Home for F-15 trainings, public records showed.

In a letter posted online Friday, Little, Risch, Sen. Mike Crapo and Rep. Mike Simpson asked Hegseth to brief Idaho’s congressional delegation about the agreement with Qatar. Risch and Crapo supported Hegseth’s nomination for secretary of defense.

“We would like the department to provide more information about the plans and intentions of this mission now that it appears to be finalized,” the letter read.

All construction of the structures at the base is expected to be completed by 2030 or 2031, ready to welcome Qatari pilots and military personnel, the Air Force spokesperson said by email.

The original plan calls for 169 members of Qatar’s military to be stationed at the base. An additional 131 U.S. Air Force personnel would join them to assist with trainings for a total of 300 more people at the base.

Fulcher’s office did not respond to a request for comment from the Idaho Statesman. But Fulcher told KIDO radio the number of people would be “around 270.” Comparatively, Singapore’s program at the base entails about 140 military personnel, he said.

“The last time I was at Mountain Home Air Force Base, they didn’t have room on site for an incremental 270 people,” Fulcher said. “So that begs the question, ‘What’s the living quarters like? Are they supposed to absorb into Mountain Home communities, East Boise?’ I don’t know the answer to that.”

New on-base dorms also are part of the construction plan to house the visiting Qataris. Off-base housing in Elmore and Ada counties could come into play as well on an interim or permanent basis, the project analysis documents said.

A new Idaho law took effect in July that prohibits foreign governments from owning property in Idaho, including near military bases. The bill targets “foreign adversaries” as defined by the federal government, which singles out countries such as China, Russia and North Korea.

Under one alternative in the military analysis plans for Qatar’s Idaho training program, the Middle East nation would buy or rent off-base housing, including in Mountain Home and Boise. Rep. Ted Hill, R-Eagle, a retired U.S. Navy captain who sponsored the state law signed by Little, declined to comment on the prospects of Qatar owning land near Mountain Home Air Force Base.

Just a week before the deal to sell the F-15s to Qatar was finalized in June 2017, Trump said in a news conference on the White House lawn that the Middle East nation “unfortunately has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.”

Today, Qatar is considered a critical ally to the U.S., rather than a foe, and a key strategic partner in the Middle East. At the news conference announcing the F-15 training program in Idaho, Hegseth said Qatar “played a substantial role from the beginning” to help deliver a recent Israel-Hamas peace treaty to end a two-year war in the Gaza Strip.

Qatar earlier this year donated a luxury jet valued at as much as $400 million to the U.S. for Trump to use as Air Force One while Boeing is delayed in delivering a new version of the president’s plane. The unprecedented gift has raised concerns among Democrats and some Republicans in Congress, including over required upgrades to the jet estimated at as much as $1 billion, according to news reports.