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US accelerates deployment; 17,000 reservists called up WASHINGTON, Feb 5: An accumulating mass of military force in the Gulf region, now topping 110,000 troops and soon to be joined by a fourth aircraft carrier, provided a menacing backdrop on Wednesday as US Secretary of State Colin Powell made the US case for action against Iraq at the United Nations. In Kuwait, where US ground troops, tanks and attack helicopters are staging in the desert along Iraq’s southern border, US forces swelled to 51,000 troops this week, up from 37,000 last week, a defence official said. Thousands more US troops may soon be moving into Turkey to open a northern front against Iraq, now that Ankara has swung its support behind the United States, after much agonizing. The accelerating pace of US force movements came as Powell went before the UN Security Council to lay out US evidence that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction and has links to the Al Qaeda group. Hours before he spoke, the aircraft carrier, USS Theodore Roosevelt, steamed out of the Caribbean with orders “to support any contingency that might come up”, said Lieutenant Commander Danny Hernandez, a navy spokesman. “It’s on its way,” Hernandez said. At least initially, it will join the USS Harry Truman in the Mediterranean. The USS Constellation already is in the Gulf, and the USS Abraham Lincoln arrived this week in the Arabian Sea. The Lincoln’s arrival meant that well over 300 US combat aircraft are now in the region, defence officials said. Each of the carriers has about 80 aircraft, including about 50 fighter aircraft. F-117 fighters, the first stealth fighters deployed so far, joined the stream of air force aircraft moving to the region since the start of the year. They include at least eight B-1 bombers, B-52 bombers on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, and F-15E strike fighters capable of delivering the most potent bombs in the US arsenal against deeply buried bunkers. In addition to the aircraft carriers, there are nearly 20 US surface warships in and around the Gulf, including at least seven that are capable of launching Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles, navy officials said. In the Mediterranean, the Truman is accompanied by seven surface warships, about half of them Tomahawk shooters. The Roosevelt has destroyers, cruisers and frigates, most of them equipped to fire the long-range precision missiles. Some 22,000 sailors and marines are now aboard ships in the region, and more are on the way, Pentagon officials said. Two amphibious task forces were converging on the region from the Pacific and the Atlantic. Each task force has seven amphibious assault ships, two of them helicopter carriers. One task force is carrying a 4,800-strong marine air-ground task force, while the other has a 6,700-strong marine air-ground task force aboard. In addition, a separate three-ship amphibious assault force led by the helicopter carrier USS Tarawa is also en route to the region with about 2,200 marines. An amphibious assault force, led by the helicopter carrier USS Nassau, is already in the region with a contingent of 2,000 marines, but it is dedicated to counter-terrorism efforts off the Horn of Africa. About 6,000 US military personnel are now in the tiny Gulf state of Qatar, where the US Central Command has a forward headquarters from which to lead any invasion of Iraq. Even as it gathers forces for Iraq, the US military continues to maintain about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan. They faces stubborn resistance from Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in areas that border Pakistan. EXILE: Swiss rights campaigner and special UN rapporteur Jean Ziegler urged Switzerland to offer exile to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should no other country do so, in comments quoted on Wednesday. “If it would save the lives of 500,000 innocent people, I would be ready to welcome even the devil,” he said in an interview with daily Blick.—AFP Our Correspondent in Washington adds: The Pentagon activated 17,000 more reservists this week, bringing the total number of citizen-soldiers called to active duty to 94,624. Many of them are headed for the Persian Gulf, although some are taking up positions in the United States. Most — more than 80,000 — are in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve, as they are a necessary component when the Army prepares for war. Critical specialties, including 80 per cent of medical and psychological operations units and 65 per cent of the military police battalions, are in the reserve. Civil affairs — soldiers who help countries rebuild after war and who work with local populations during combat — is entirely resident in the reserve. The Army made the decision to base those capabilities in the reserve after the Vietnam War. The reasoning was that if citizens rather than professional soldiers were mobilized for conflicts, the general populace would be far more likely to support it. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld believes that approach is flawed, and he intends to direct a reorganization of the services to reduce the reliance on reserve forces when a conflict just begins. “My personal view is that I’ve got a group of folks reviewing the current arrangement because my instinct is that it doesn’t make sense to have the people who are required very early in a conflict in the reserves,” he told the Reserve Officers Association in January. “My view is that we need to come up with a proposal where we shift some of those skills and see that we have on active duty people who may be needed, for example, in an instance like this (the build-up toward Iraq) where it’s not clear what’s going to happen,” he said. Last week, the Pentagon activated approximately 16,000 more reserve troops. Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
