December 12, 2002	Thursday	Shawwal 7, 1423

DOHA: With the American military presence in the Gulf under pressure, the tiny Gulf Arab state of Qatar is rapidly acquiring new importance in US strategy for the region, and welcoming the role even as war looms with Iraq.

Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld will be “in and out” of Qatar in the next two days as he visits Saudi Arabia and some Horn of Africa states, as will General Tommy Franks whose Central Command has established a mobile headquarters here.

The new command centre, currently undergoing tests in a major war game thought to focus on a possible invasion of Iraq, complements a similar nerve-centre CentCom built at great expense at Prince Sultan airbase southwest of the Saudi capital.

Senior Qatari officials say Qatar is not out to supplant much larger Saudi Arabia as Washington’s main ally in the oil-rich Gulf.

They say Saudi Arabia’s public reluctance to let the Pentagon use the Prince Sultan base should there be a conflict is unlikely to mean it will refuse it in a crunch.

“All Gulf leaders would like to see the back of (Iraqi president) Saddam Hussein. He’s caused them no end of trouble. But they hope there is no war,” said an official familiar with Qatar’s policy and that of Gulf partner states.

But as former CIA military analyst and regional specialist Kenneth Pollack points out in his recently published book “The Threatening Storm”, the people of the Gulf states are generally unhappy with the presence of United States military forces.

“Some see it as a necessary evil; others condemn it as a form of imperialist occupation. Painfully few welcome it. The governments of the region continue to want our presence but they recognise the popular discontent and increasingly bend to it.”

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL: Qatar appears to be an exception. By welcoming US forces, its rulers feel, Qatar can take some heat off Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where resentment of the US presence has sparked isolated shooting at troops.

Flat as an ironing-board over 90 percent of its sparsely populated territory and well-endowed with secure military facilities, the emirate, measuring 80 by 160 km (50 by 100 miles) could be a perfect terrestrial aircraft carrier.

The Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani has not said whether Washington has formally requested rights to use bases here in an attack on Iraq. But sources indicate that he would be ready to accommodate such a request.

The discretion shown by some 5,000 US troops currently in Qatar is notable. They do not appear in uniform on the streets of the capital Doha, and you have to look hard to see the Stars and Stripes flying at Qatari military bases they are using.

Were it not for newspaper stories, the occasional F-18 jet over Doha and the dark grey military transports at the capital’s airport, Qatar’s 600,000 people might be oblivious.

“We do not have a problem with the masses as some do,” said the official. Qatar’s recently uneasy ties with Saudi Arabia, guardian of Islam’s holiest sites, had much more to do with its free-wheeling television channel al-Jazeera.

Heavy US armour pre-positioned in 27 warehouses at Al Sailiyah base nearby was brought in discreetly via the tightly secured Mesaieed oil terminal port in the southeast, which has its own highway direct to the bases in use.

Qatari special forces provide security outside the base, posting lookouts on high dunes east of the sprawling Al Udeid airfield where US tanker planes fly out to refuel combat aircraft over Afghanistan and Iraq’s southern no-fly zone.

A WELCOME MAT: Few people believe Washington can maintain its current posture with major bases in five of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states for another decade, Pollack notes.

Fundamentalist fury at the presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia a decade after the Gulf War is one of the driving forces behind Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network.

Qatar, a GCC member, appears relaxed about the prospect of US forces staying on for an indefinite time.

United States military officials say part of General Franks’ current Qatar contingent will remain “for the time being” after their exercise, called Internal Look, is completed in a few days.

According to one report in the United States, the base could be engaged in further military planning for an Iraq campaign.—Reuters