• Three districts – Riyadh, Jeddah, and Al Batin – to supervise construction programs throughout the Kingdom.

• An Engineer Logistics Command, responsible for directing and coordinating all logistics activities.

• An Ordnance Program Division that worked with the Saudi Arabian Army Ordnance Corps in operating and maintaining its logistics systems for wheeled and tracked vehicles.

• And a rear echelon near Winchester, Virginia, to manage the large volume of design work and award contracts on behalf of the division headquarters and its districts.

The Corps of Engineers assisted the Saudi Arabian government with a $14 billion design and construction program that included military cantonments, headquarters complexes, housing, air bases, navy bases, port facilities, hospitals, military training centers and schools, and all associated utilities and roads. This construction formed a portion of the major infrastructure that supported U.S. military operations in Saudi Arabia during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990-1991.

MEAPO had a large geographic expanse. In Oman, it managed the design and construction of $300 million in facilities at four locations for use by the U.S. Air Force, with permission of the Sultanate.

Under the Defense Department’s foreign military sales program, the organization supervised projects that supported the defense forces of Egypt, Bahrain, and Kuwait, with smaller projects in Sudan and Liberia. Under a U.S. security assistance program, the Corps of Engineers supported the Africa Civic Action Program with technical and procurement services provided to host nation military forces engaging in beneficial projects for both military and civilian sectors of their populations.

Additionally, MEAPO served the Voice of America with its modernization program to upgrade broadcast stations overseas and the Department of Defense Dependents Schools with its worldwide asbestos abatement program. MEAPO was also instrumental in assisting Third U.S. Army with the development of the earliest LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) service contracts and awarded the first package, for a petroleum distribution project in the Middle East.

Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm: Within days of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, MEAPO began its deployment to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, to provide design, construction, and real estate services to support U.S. forces.

Ultimately, the Corps of Engineers designed and constructed facilities totaling approximately $300 million and executed leases with private Saudi Arabian land owners and businesses totaling $135 million in annual rental fees.

Events in Europe and the Middle East prompted the Corps of Engineers to realign the overseas elements serving these regions. In February 1991, the Transatlantic Division was formed with its headquarters in Winchester, Virginia, multiple area and resident offices in the Middle East, and a single district – Europe – in Germany.

In addition to the engineering missions that had been managed by its predecessor, the first half of the decade brought several new programs to the Transatlantic Division:

• Assisting Kuwait’s government with its recovery operations after it was liberated from Iraq. Civil repairs totaling $330 million were made to electricity, water, and sanitary systems; public and state buildings, including the Parliament; and roads and transportation systems. Repairs were made to Kuwait’s two air bases, with that work valued at $131 million.

• Assisting with Operation Provide Comfort, providing engineering assistance for relief efforts to Kurdish refugees in Turkey and northern Iraq.

• Expanding its engineering support to U.S. Central Command, a major unified command, for its operations in the Middle East.

• Working in the former Soviet Union for programs ranging from embassy renovation to assisting with projects to reduce the threat of chemical and nuclear weapons.

• And developing, awarding, and administering the Army’s first worldwide Logistics Civil Augmentation Program contract from 1992-1997, used to provide logistics and engineering services to U.S. forces deployed to Somalia, Rwanda and Zaire, Haiti, the Middle East, Italy, and the Balkans.

In 1995, the Transatlantic Division was renamed the Transatlantic Programs Center as a result of division restructuring in the Corps of Engineers. An organizational change in 1998 reassigned Europe District to the North Atlantic Division.

The Transatlantic Programs Center continued the operations of its predecessor. In the late 1990s, the Center assisted the U.S. Agency for International Development with construction projects in Kenya and Tanzania, and assisted the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy with designing and building a nuclear storage facility in the Ural Mountains.

As a result of the global war on terror, the Transatlantic Programs Center expanded its operations to meet the engineering requirements resulting from the troop buildup for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fall 2002, the Center initiated a program to build barracks and related facilities for graduating battalions of the Afghanistan National Army and concurrent established the Afghanistan Area Office, which later evolved into an independent district reporting to the Corps of Engineers headquarters. As the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan increased, the Center provided project management, technical, contracting, and business support services to the Gulf Region Division and its three districts in Iraq and to the Afghanistan Engineer District. It also established the USACE Deployment Center to prepare civilians for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Throughout this period, the Transatlantic Programs Center continued to provide engineering and construction services to U.S. Central Command and its component services; to other Defense Department customers; and to foreign defense forces and other U.S. government agencies. In early 2009 it completed construction of the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center, a state-of-the-art counterterrorism training facility designed to make the world a safer place.

The Middle East District traces its roots to the Transatlantic Programs Center, which was re-designated as the Middle East District on October 1, 2009, following the activation of its higher headquarters, the Transatlantic Division. The renaming reflected an organizational realignment but did not alter the District’s core mission: delivering engineering, construction, and related services to U.S. and allied partners across the Middle East and Central Asia.

For more than 15 years, the Middle East District has served as USACE’s lead district for long-term, steady-state missions supporting U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). The district executes U.S. military construction, Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programs, and interagency infrastructure initiatives, while also providing engineering support to U.S. and partner-nation militaries.

Supported Operations

•             Foreign Military Sales programs under the Department of Defense

•             Long-term facility and infrastructure support to U.S. military and embassy operations

•             Engineering support to U.S. Central Command and partner-nation militaries

•             Humanitarian assistance and civil works through interagency coordination

Accomplishments

•             Established enduring partnerships with U.S. embassies, combatant commands, and host-nation governments

•             Delivered consistent, high-quality engineering in dynamic and politically sensitive environments

•             Maintained mission continuity across changes in U.S. military posture and diplomatic priorities

Notable Projects

•             Construction of airbases, training centers, and operational facilities in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates

•             Embassy and consulate support projects in Egypt, Oman, Kuwait, and Iraq

•             Foreign Military Sales–funded engineering programs in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt

•             Long-range master planning, environmental services, and infrastructure design across more than 20 partner-nation installations

On August 5, 2025, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Transatlantic Division stood down, formally transferring the USACE mission in support of U.S. Central Command to the Southwestern Division. With this transition, the Middle East District and the Expeditionary District came under the Southwestern Division, ensuring continuity of operations across the region and preserving one of the Corps’ most complex and enduring missions in international engineering.