LONDON: At odds on the size, timing and merits of a possible US attack on Iraq, naval and military experts agree that any significant strike would take months of preparation with most equipment arriving in the theatre of war by sea.

They said there are some tentative signs that the US has begun to pre-position supplies and equipment in the Gulf but at nothing like the rate that would be needed to wage a war.

“During the Gulf War it took the US and its allies six months to get troops and equipment offloaded in Saudi Arabia and into the theatre prior to Desert Storm,” said Joanna Kidd, a naval defence analyst with the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies.

“They would need to move a hell of a lot more than this if they were going to have a significant attack even this year,” said Michael Clarke, director of the Centre for Defence Studies in London.

“At these sorts of rates of movement you are still looking at January or February.”

During the Gulf war of 1991, the US military shipped 12 million tons of equipment, including tanks, helicopters, ammunition and fuel to support an attacking force of 500,000 men.

Ninety-five per cent of that moved by sea on navy-owned and commercially-chartered ships.

Military analysts and shipping brokers have been watching for any unusual movements by the US Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC) — the lead agency responsible for shipping the bulk of military supplies during the Gulf War.

Last week the MSC stepped into the commercial shipping market in Europe to charter a large roll-on-roll-off ship to carry heavy military equipment to the Gulf for discharge by late-August.

Roll-on-roll-off ships, and oil tankers to carry military jet fuel and marine diesel oil, will top the US military’s most wanted list of vessels if war breaks out.

TANKS: Brokers and shipping company sources who chartered ships to move heavy armour for the MSC in 1991 said the quantity of the shipment moved last week — 222 separate items covering 38,000 square feet (3,530 sq metres) — implied the items were tanks and armoured vehicles.

Earlier this week, the Department of Defence awarded a massive contract to US-based Maersk Line, part of Danish shipping giant Maersk Sealand, to operate and maintain eight US government-owned ships capable of carrying army cargo including ammunition, M1A1-tanks, tanker trucks and ambulances.—Reuters