- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Viewed on their own, each of these individual chess moves
looks quotidian. Taken together, they start to look like a well-implemented
game plan.
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- There are already 400 US warplanes in the region.
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- 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.
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- Gen Franks's force commanders are also already in the
Gulf, having quietly established and expanded command posts there over
the past few months.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Reinforced
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- 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.
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- 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).
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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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