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To: 4figureau who wrote (2541)	1/9/2003 10:02:36 AM
From: 4figureau	Respond to of 5423

U.S. building for possible air war against Iraq Thursday January 9, 9:55 am ET By Charles Aldinger WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The Air Force has begun sending dozens of B-1B bombers and fighter aircraft to the Gulf region in a surge of U.S. arms and combat troops to prepare for possible war with Iraq, defense officials said on Thursday. Officials at the Pentagon and Air Combat Command headquarters at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, said four-engine B-1B jets from the 28th Bomb Wing began departing Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, on Tuesday night and that fighter and attacks planes will go from U.S. bases in coming days. The warplanes join thousands of Army and Marine Corps combat troops flowing to the Gulf in a new year's surge that will more than double the 60,000 U.S. military personnel now stationed at bases in Kuwait and aircraft carrier battle groups. "They have already had a few aircraft deploy," Air Force Maj. Roger Lawson, a spokesman at Langley, said of the supersonic, swing-wing B-1B's from South Dakota. The four-engine jets have been modified since the 1991 Gulf War to carry 24 satellite-guided GBU-31 2,000-pound 907 kg bombs. Lawson and other officials refused to say exactly where the B-1s -- expected to include about half of the two-dozen big jets based at Ellsworth -- were going. Their basing could include the British base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Also scheduled to deploy to the region quickly are F-15C fighter jets from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley in Virginia and two-seat F-15E ground attack versions of the jets from the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson AFB in North Carolina. INTELLIGENCE, OTHER AIRCRAFT GOING The Air Force is also sending sophisticated Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft from Robins AFB, Georgia. The four-engine aircraft can circle far from target areas and provide targeting intelligence for attack aircraft. Unmanned "Predator" reconnaissance aircraft are also being deployed with their controllers from Nellis AFB, Nevada. Those little craft can also carry missiles to attack ground targets. Air Force officials said big eight-engine B-52 bombers based at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, and Minot AFB, North Dakota, had not received orders to deploy. But the jets could be used in an air war along with radar-avoiding B-2 "stealth" bombers that would move from their base in the United States to Diego Garcia and Britain. Since the new year began, the Army has begun to deploy more than 11,000 soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division from Ft. Benning and Ft. Stewart, Georgia, as well as hundreds of engineers, intelligence specialists, military police and others from Germany to the Gulf in the surge of troops, warplanes and ships. The Marine Corps is also deploying troops from California and North Carolina and 10,000 part-time Army Reserve and National Guard troops have been put on alert to go. The Navy has signaled it is preparing to move at least two additional aircraft carrier battle groups with 150 warplanes and dozens of ship-launched cruise missiles to the region. The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort sailed out of the port of Baltimore, Maryland, on Monday for the Gulf region to prepare to handle casualties in any invasion of Iraq ordered by President George W. Bush. Bush says he has made no decision on whether to invade Iraq over U.S. charges that Baghdad is developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But he has repeatedly warned such a move may become necessary despite denials from Iraq that it is developing such weapons. biz.yahoo.com