WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE (USA), Oct 30: The United States will deploy B-2 Stealth bombers closer to the Gulf region to increase the US firepower there amid mounting pressure on Iraq, a US air force commander said here on Wednesday.

The B2 Bomber Wing began practising on Tuesday for the deployment to the British Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and an airbase at Fairford in England, said a commander of the bomb wing.

He did not say how many of the 1.1 billion dollar jets would be sent, but told reporters: “We will go when the president and the secretary of defense tasks us to do that.”

The B-2s would take the lead in any campaign to disarm Iraqi military defences and knock out its communications.

“We will move this to a forward location so we can cycle these aircraft as rapidly as necessary,” said the bomb wing commander.

Raaberg said work was underway to install five special climate controlled shelters for B-2s at Diego Garcia and Fairford. He said it takes 30 days to put up one of the 1.5 million dollar shelters.

“We want to take care of our combatant commander, give him the firepower he needs and the flexibility to do what he needs to do,” said the commander.

Putting just two B-2s closer to the Gulf will enable US forces to fly 12 stealth bomber missions for every one that could be flown from Whiteman air force base in the US mid-west, the military said.

The operation to move the bombers began with simulated deployments to Fairford and Diego Garcia.

On Thursday, B-2s will fly to simulated target areas in the United States, approximating the distances and flight times of missions that would be flown from the two forward bases.

The air force has 21 B-2 bombers. They made their combat debut in the 1999 air war over Kosovo. They were also used at the start of the airstrikes in Afghanistan last year.

In all they flew 12 missions on the first four nights of the Afghan air campaign.

The B-2 would take a similar role in any campaign against Iraq.

The kind of targets that B2 go after are communications, command and control bases and air defences. Once these are knocked out, the enemy military is operating blind, experts said.

The B-2 carries 16 900-kg satellite-guided bombs — the weapon of choice in Afghanistan.—AFP