WASHINGTON, March 26: The United States is flying its high-tech Fourth Infantry Division and other units totalling more than 30,000 troops to the Gulf to join the invasion of Iraq, the military said on Wednesday.

Troops from the division, based at Fort Hood, Texas, and considered one of the most modern fighting forces in the military, will begin flying to the Gulf region in coming days to join its heavy armour and equipment now approaching Kuwait on ships.

The division, with a total of 16,000 troops at Fort Hood and Fort Carson, Colorado, has been awaiting deployment for more than two months. It was originally scheduled to go to Turkey to open a northern front against Baghdad, but Ankara refused to grant basing rights for American forces.

The division’s equipment, including more than 200 M-1A2 tanks, is currently being shipped from waters off Turkey to Kuwait and the troops are expected to go there.

But Dan Hassett, a spokesman at Fort Hood, refused to say exactly where the troops would be flown.

“The Fourth Infantry Division has received orders to move and will be going in the coming days,” the spokesman said.

He said that other military units totalling about 14,000 troops were also moving with the division. The mobile Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, with 5,200 troops, announced at Fort Carson on Tuesday that it had received orders to go.

PENTAGON DEFENDS WAR PLAN: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and America’s top military officer defended US war plans in Iraq on Tuesday amid criticism from many experts who questioned the size and punch of the invasion force being used in the week-old war.—Reuters