The Baltimore Sun October 21, 2002
Moving forces signals approach of war
By Tom Bowman
WASHINGTON - In what might be preliminary steps toward another war with Iraq, Army military planners are moving from Germany to the Persian Gulf, the Navy is speeding up deployment of carriers to the region and the Marines are conducting exercises in the remote expanses of the Kuwaiti desert.
But the clearest signs that hostilities are imminent will first be apparent at the remote Air Force bases in the American Midwest and Southwest, where the country's radar-evading stealth aircraft are kept, as well as at a sleepy Army town in southern Kentucky, home to elite helicopter-borne troops.
Those planes and soldiers will be among the first lethal elements the Bush administration would use to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and they would move out of their state-side bases in the last weeks before an invasion, said Pentagon officials and military analysts.
Another unmistakable sign of impending war will be the call-up of National Guard and Reserve forces by President Bush, probably at least a month before he authorizes a strike. Tens of thousands of citizen soldiers will be needed, from pilots and engineers to air traffic controllers and military policemen, the officers and analysts estimated.
"We can't go to war without the Guard and Reserves," said retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who commanded the 24th Mechanized Division that spearheaded the famed "Left Hook" attack against Iraqi forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
Much necessary equipment - such as refueling tankers and cargo planes - is in Reserve units. "To run a major operation with Iraq, the first thing the president will need is 100,000 troops" from the Guard and Reserve, McCaffrey said.
Should war be close, the bat-winged, radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in rural west-central Missouri will roar into the skies and head to forward bases overseas. These planes, when armed, carry scores of precision weapons that can strike Hussein's bunker-like military facilities and headquarters.
Meanwhile, a wave of F-117A Nighthawk warplanes will leave Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico's desert and likely stream toward airfields in Kuwait, each stealthy aircraft able to carry a pair of 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs.
Retired Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak, who was Air Force chief of staff during the Persian Gulf war, said the movement of stealth aircraft to the region will be a clear signal that action is not far off.
Those sophisticated warplanes "rule the night," said retired Rear Adm. Steve Baker, noting that the F-117 was the only allied plane in 1991 to attack heavily defended Baghdad. Hussein's formidable ground-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns never touched them.
Only 36 of these planes were deployed in 1991, accounting for 2.5 percent of the total force of 1,900 allied aircraft in the gulf war. But the Nighthawks flew more than a third of the bombing runs on the first day of the war, according to GlobalSecurity.org, a defense think tank.
As war approaches, another radar-evading plane, the B-1B Lancer, will move to the region from bases in Texas and South Dakota.
The Lancer made its combat debut in Iraq, in the 1998 Desert Fox attacks that targeted the barracks of Hussein's elite Republican Guard, along with airfields and command and control facilities.
Officers note that the Lancer is a versatile aircraft in that it can carry a variety of bombs - ordnance designed to destroy everything from tanks to underground bunkers.
The B-2 was first used in the air war against Serbia in 1999. Its all-weather precision capability was responsible for destroying 33 percent of all designated Serbian targets in the first eight weeks of action, according to the Air Force.
Meanwhile, at Fort Campbell, Ky., home of the 101st Air Assault Division, leaves will be canceled, the elite airborne troops will be called back to base and put on a "short string."
The fabled division, known as the "Screaming Eagles," is equipped with attack helicopters and is required to have a brigade of 4,000 troops ready to deploy within 36 hours.
In 1991, Apache helicopters from the division swept into Iraq on the first night of the war and "plucked out the eyes" of Iraqi air defenses with laser-guided Hellfire missiles, as Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of allied forces in the gulf war, later recalled.
Even before the Apaches fired, the F-117 warplanes had penetrated Iraqi airspace and were streaming toward targets in Baghdad.
Though the 101st is expected to deploy first, other units are likely to follow quickly, among them the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., and the 1st Calvary Division from Fort Hood, Texas.
The 101st is sending a brigade to an Army base in Louisiana this month for regularly scheduled training in helicopter attacks and urban fighting.
But because of the growing likelihood of war with Iraq, it will not take its usual complement of communications equipment. Those battlefield phones and specialized Humvees topped with powerful antennas will stay at Fort Campbell, in case the division is ordered to the gulf, officials said.
Ship movements might also provide a clue to the onset of war. The Pentagon keeps 37 vessels around the globe fully loaded with military hardware and supplies. The largest concentration of those ships is at Diego Garcia, the British island base in the Indian Ocean, and they can reach the Middle East in five days or less. Their equipment would be matched with troops brought in by air.
Unlike a decade ago for the Gulf war, pre-positioned supplies and equipment make it possible for troops to be sent into battle without waiting for supplies from the United States.
Still, the supplies in Diego Garcia are designed to last for only 30 days. And since a re-supply from the United States is at least 20 days away - five days to activate and load the ships, and 15 to steam across the Atlantic and through the Suez Canal - large cargo ships in the United States would have to move as soon as their counterparts in Diego Garcia did.
"[Defense Secretary Donald H.] Rumsfeld keeps saying that he wants to do it differently, that he wants a smaller and lighter force, but you still have to have heavy equipment. And to move heavy equipment, you need those ships," said retired Navy Vice Adm. Albert J. Herberger, a former vice commander of the U.S. Transportation Command. Herberger said those in the maritime business have been told "quietly, to stand ready" by the military:
"It might not be like Desert Storm, where large units will start going and everyone will know what's happening."
Still, there are signs that some maritime movement is afoot, the kind of low rumble toward war that could end with the dramatic crescendo of airborne troops and stealth bombers taking to the skies.
One of the Navy's eight Fast Sealift Ships, the USNS Bellatrix, has been activated and sent to San Diego to load Marine Corps equipment for shipment to the Persian Gulf. Two other Navy ships - the USNS Bob Hope and the USNS Fisher - known as LMSRs, for large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off ships, have been ordered to begin loading military equipment somewhere on the East Coast. Navy officials won't say where.
Sources aboard vessels of the Ready Reserve Force - cargo ships maintained by the U.S. government - say they are being outfitted with chemical, biological and radiological defensive gear, including gas masks, protective suits and hazard-detection devices. Some ships have had their weapons lockers - typically empty in peacetime - stocked with small arms and ammunition.
Sun staff writer Robert Little contributed to this article.
Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun
