The Guardian (London) September 13, 2002
US military builds up huge attack force: Warmer words at UN mask activity
By Julian Borger in Washington and Richard Norton-Taylor
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, nattily titled Operation Plan 1003, the force could be assembled in just 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.
Over the past few months, the Dollars 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 the Prince Sultan air base near Riyadh, where a hi-tech command and control centre was completed only last summer, is still their first choice.
The US air force has been hard at work since the spring, moving computer equipment and munitions to al-Udeid, home to the longest runway in the region (15,000ft - 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 though they start to look like a well-implemented game plan.
There are already 400 US warplanes in the region.
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 fifth fleet, which has been based there for years.
Copyright 2002 Guardian Newspapers Limited
