US military builds up huge attack force
Warmer words at UN mask activity
Julian Borger in Washington and Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday September 13, 2002
The Guardian
As George Bush was displaying his grasp of diplomatic
vocabulary in front of the UN yesterday, 7,000 miles away in the
Gulf his fellow Americans were speaking a different language.
Their words were military terms: frigates, bombers, air defence
fighters, refuelling tankers, carrier battle groups, reconnaissance
planes, special forces. All these things are on their way to the
region or already in position in readiness for a possible attack on
Iraq.
In the most blunt indication yet that the US administration's
threat is not an idle one and it will force Iraq if necessary to
meet its UN pledges, the US central command will move its
headquarters to Qatar in November, perhaps indefinitely. The
relocation is the culmination of a series of low-key moves on the
Gulf chessboard designed to put all the pieces in place for a
rapid US assault should the UN route now being pursued by
Washington fail.
The establishment of command posts and the pre-positioning of
heavy equipment in the region over the past year have put
central command (Centcom) in a position to launch a strike on
Baghdad within a fortnight of the order being given, if it is
decided to mount the operation with a fast and light force of
50,000. There are about 30,000 American troops in the region
already.
"It would take 10 days to bring in the additional equipment, 10
days to airlift the troops and 10 days to get to Baghdad," said
John Pike, the head of GlobalSecurity.org, a thinktank which
closely monitors military movements.
Nor would it take long to complete the military build-up if it were
decided to play it safe and gather an overwhelming force of
200,000 or more before striking. Under Centcom's blueprint for a
full-scale invasion, Operation Plan 1003, the force could be
assembled in two months. That would be much faster than the
six months' build-up in the last Gulf war, partly because it would
involve fewer troops, partly because the sluggish US military
machine has become gradually more nimble.
The deployment of Centcom's headquarters from Florida to
Qatar is officially part of a biennial exercise called Internal Look
and is supposed to last a week. However it is highly unusual for
General Tommy Franks, the man who would command an Iraqi
invasion, and 600 of his top staff, to take part in such a distant
relocation. The Pentagon has also made it clear that the move
could be permanent.
In the past few months, the $1.7bn al-Udeid base in Qatar has
been expanded and enhanced to serve as an alternative to Saudi
Arabia, which acted host to US headquarters in the first Gulf
war, but which has refused to get involved this time. Some
Pentagon officials still believe that the Saudis will relent at the
last moment, and say that the Prince Sultan air base near
Riyadh, where a hi-tech command and control centre was
completed last summer, is their first choice.
The US air force has since the spring been moving computer
equipment and munitions to al-Udeid, home to the region's
longest runway (4,500 metres). Engineers are also at work
replicating the base's state-of-the-art combined air operations
centre, from where complex large-scale air raids can be
coordinated.
Viewed on their own, each of these individual chess moves
looks quotidian. Taken together, they start to look like a
well-implemented game plan.
There are already 400 US warplanes in the region.
In another small sign of military wheels turning faster, the
Washington Kurdish Institute received a call yesterday from the
US air force seeking a "crash course" in Kurdish. It would have
to start soon, an air force officer said, and some students might
have to leave at short notice.
Gen Franks's force commanders are also already in the Gulf,
having quietly established and expanded command posts there
over the past few months.
The US third army, Centcom's ground component, set up its
headquarters in Kuwait in November, and work has been under
way since then to transform it into a hub for ground operations.
A specialised marine unit with equipment to detect chemical
biological or radiological attacks, is also on the way to Kuwait.
The marine headquarters was ordered to Bahrain in January this
year, to set up camp alongside the US navy's 5th fleet, which
has been based there for years.
Reinforced
US special forces are also believed to have been considerably
reinforced in the Gulf. The navy seals have set up a
headquarters in Bahrain. Other units are in Kuwait, Qatar and
Oman, where the SAS is also training.
Large amounts of equipment have been warehoused in the Gulf
so that it is instantly available when the order to invade is given.
Mr Pike said there were enough tanks, armoured cars and
munitions in place in Qatar and Kuwait for three heavy
mechanised brigades (a total of up to 15,000 troops).
Less visible, but no less definite, is the British move towards
military preparedness. The Royal Navy's flagship, the Ark Royal,
is on long-planned exercises in the Mediterranean. It could
provide a floating command and control centre for British forces
and base for Royal Marine commandos and special forces.
There are two specific ways in which the RAF could help the US
- refuelling US navy aircraft and providing intelligence from
high-flying Canberra planes equipped with aerial reconnaissance
cameras. The third - passive - contribution would be the British
island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. It was used by B-52
bombers in the 1991 Gulf war and in the recent Afghanistan
campaign. Equipment loaded on to ships ready to sail from
Diego Garcia could be in the Gulf within a week.
On the ground, Britain's contribution would consist of two
distinct elements - paratroopers from the 16 assault brigade,
SAS troops, and possible marine commandos dropped into Iraq
by helicopter, and - in the event of a full-scale land invasion - two
heavily armoured brigades equipped with Challenger 2 battle
tanks.
These are based in Germany and are unlikely to be ready for
action in the Gulf before the end of the year, British defence
sources say. On top of this litany of military preparations, the
bombing, of course, is already under way. Senior British defence
sources yesterday told the Guardian that US and UK aircraft
were stepping up "no-fly" patrols over southern Iraq to destroy
the air defence system, as a prelude to a possible invasion.
British defence sources said yesterday that US and UK planes
were patrolling in an "unpredictable" way. However, the past
week's air strikes show that they are attacking targets over a
wide area.
The targets have included a large Iraqi military base 250 miles
south-west of Baghdad and an anti-ship missile base near the
southern port of Basra. One of the reasons why the patrols have
increased is that US radar-jamming "Prowler" aircraft have
returned to the Gulf after action in Afghanistan. British Tornado
fighters and bombers based in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia rely on
American planes to jam Iraqi radar.
British defence sources have now given up the pretence that the
southern no-fly zone is a humanitarian exercise designed to
protect Iraqi Shias and Marsh Arabs. They too are increasingly
bluntly speaking the language of war.
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