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To: Ilaine who wrote (2320)	11/5/2002 6:50:44 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 6901

Hi CobaltBlue; The more significant news is that they've activated three or four ROROs (for a single voyage each). While this is considerably larger than the military movements you were talking about a few months ago, this is still not particularly significant. A real war with Iraq will involve *all* the ROROs, and a good proportion of the rest of the MSC. Other than that, note the following from the article: The carriers Constellation and Harry S. Truman were expected to take over in December for the Lincoln and the George Washington, which is in the Mediterranean Sea. But both the Lincoln and George Washington could be kept on deployment in the event of war with Iraq. In other words, after you cut through the BS, the result is no net increase in force, *unless the Lincoln and/or George Washington are kept overseas, and you won't know that until December.* The Navy can *always* keep aircraft carriers on station if they need to, so there is very little information in the current deployments that suggests war. To put the carrier deployments in perspective, the Kuwait liberation required 6 carriers: Name Squadrons Arrived Left ----------------- --------- ------- ------- Saratoga 9 7 Aug 1990 28 Mar 1991 John F. Kennedy 9 15 Aug 1990 28 Mar 1991 Midway 9 2 Oct 1990 17 Apr 1991 Ranger 9 8 Dec 1990 8 Jun 1991 America 9 28 Dec 1990 18 Apr 1991 Theodore Roosevelt 11 28 Dec 1990 28 Jun 1991 history.navy.mil I've included the squadron counts to prove that these 6 aircraft carriers were full size. Note that most of the arrival times are to just a month before hostilities began. Also, the earliest ships were present 5 months before hostilities began. This is compatible with standard military operations. By contrast, Patrick Garrett (the "expert") believes that the US might retain the Lincoln and George Washington, thereby increasing the forces in the area. But that would leave those ships on duty for considerably longer than the US required of its longest duty carriers in the Kuwait liberation. The Lincoln left port on July 20, 2002. Four months later would be this month, which is too early for a war because the other carriers will not yet have arrived and had their 1 month of training to prepare for combat. The George Washington left the East coast on June 20, 2002, which means it's been on station a month longer than the Lincoln. I know that you don't appreciate my commentary, but what I've done here is provide you with a template that allows you to compare the current deployment with the preparations that went into the last Gulf War. If you look at the evidence I've provided you, you will realize that the commentators employed by the newspapers are [insert phrase for "not competent" here]. If we had to fight Iraq in November we could. If we had to we could send every aircraft carrier we've got over there in a few weeks. But an attack on Iraq will not be a desperate last ditch attempt like the battle at Midway. Instead, (in the unlikely event that it occurs) it will be a standard US military operation. That means that all necessary reserves will be called up prior to action; that aircraft carriers that are reasonably fresh from deployment will be used, and those aircraft carriers will be given a month to train in the area. These are all indications that will be available long before any real attack. -- Carl