- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
United States has scrapped plans to move U.S. troops through Turkey into
northern Iraq and instead will send the 4th Infantry Division from Texas
to Kuwait to join a thrust into embattled Iraq from the south, U.S. officials
said on Saturday.
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- Abandonment of the use of Turkey to open a planned "northern
front" in the Iraq war follows Ankara's refusal to provide transit
rights for as many as 62,000 American troops into Iraq.
-
- The U.S. military will as early as this weekend begin
moving about 20 cargo ships loaded with equipment for the 4th Infantry
Division from where they have been waiting for weeks off the coast of Turkey
through the Suez Canal toward the Gulf, according to the officials, who
asked not to be identified.
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- The infantry division and other supporting military units
totaling up to 40,000 or more troops are expected to be flown from Fort
Hood, Texas, and other bases to join the armor and equipment in Kuwait,
the officials told Reuters.
-
- The troops would join tens of thousands of U.S. and British
soldiers and Marines now driving northward through southern Iraq toward
Baghdad from Kuwait in a 3-day-old war aimed at deposing President Saddam
Hussein.
-
- There are currently more than 280,000 American and British
forces in the Gulf region including naval and air forces, and the movement
of the new division and support units would bring the total to well over
300,000.
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- HOPES FOR 'NORTHERN FRONT'
-
- The Pentagon had for months hoped to use Turkey as a
conduit into northern Iraq to open a major "northern front" in
the war to keep Iraqi forces tied up and secure oil fields in the region.
-
- But U.S. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the
U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on Friday that American
troops were being moved into northern Iraq. He did not say whether they
were being flown in from elsewhere.
-
- A U.S. official confirmed in Washington on Friday that
Turkey agreed to open its airspace to U.S. aircraft to attack Iraq and
he said the decision eased frustration in the U.S. government over the
troops issue.
-
- "It definitely makes things a lot easier for the
military scenarios," said the U.S. official of the overflights decision
announced by Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul in Ankara.
-
- The Turkish parliament on Thursday voted to give overflight
rights to the United States but Turkey had delayed opening its airspace
to U.S. planes, demanding close control of overflights and greater freedom
to send its own troops over the border.
-
- The U.S. official said the troops issue had been "de-coupled"
from the talks on overflights, although he noted Ankara still wanted to
be able to send troops into northern Iraq and Washington still opposed
its doing so unilaterally.
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