US commander arrives for high-profile Gulf exercise

07/12/2002| IslamWeb

The commander of US forces in the Gulf has arrived in Qatar for a high-profile military exercise as the United States moves closer to a decision whether to go to war against Iraq.Army General Tommy Franks, who heads the US Central Command, flew in Friday to this tiny emirate housing a high-tech American headquarters that would be the nerve center of any Iraqi campaign, US officials said.

Franks was to lead a week-long command exercise called "Internal Look" that kicks off Monday involving some 1,000 US and British personnel brought in here, said Major Bill Harrison, a Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman.

His move to the region came ahead of Sunday's deadline for Iraq to make a full declaration of its weapons of mass destruction, a critical juncture in the revived UN disarmament process.

Washington steers away from any direct link between the war games and US threats to disarm Baghdad by force if necessary. Military officials confirm only grudgingly the scenarios they will be playing out include Iraq.

They are also cagey about whether some or all of the 600-700 US staff deployed here, including top war planners, will stay on after putting their computers and communications facilities through their paces.

"We have never said anything other than that we fully intend to redeploy after the exercise. There are many things that could change that," said Lieutenant Colonel John Robinson, another CENTCOM spokesman.

But the "Internal Look" exercise is clearly part of a coordinated US effort to maintain the heat on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to come clean about his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was due to visit Qatar after a tour of the Horn of Africa next week, the US embassy said. The US army has also begun to grant media access to ongoing live-fire exercises south of the Iraqi border in Kuwait.

The Qatar exercise is the latest in the "Internal Look" series, following war games held in 1996 and 2000. A similar effort conducted in 1990 produced a blueprint for the US-led drive to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991.

With Saudi Arabia balking at a repeat of its 1991 role as a base for US-led forces, the Americans have set up a state-of-the-art command center at Qatar's sprawling As-Saliyah army base, 15 kilometers (10 miles) from Doha.

US officials said the deployable complex of several modular buildings housing computers and communications equipment would remain after the exercise ends, giving Franks the option to move forward as he sees fit.

The United States has reportedly spent more than 100 million dollars to build more than 20 climate-controlled warehouses at As-Saliyah to store hundreds of tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and other hardware.

No combat troops will be involved in the exercise that will link Franks with commanders of the Navy, Army and Marine Corps units in the region as well as CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida. Overall, several thousand US personnel will be involved, officials said.

Harrison said 300 British personnel had been deployed in Qatar for the effort. A British embassy spokesman said 400 troops had arrived and another 400 would take part from bases abroad.

"It will be a very comprehensive worldwide exercise," a senior CENTCOM official in Tampa said this week. The Americans declined to say if other nations were involved.

The US military says that its advanced communications make it possible to run a war from Tampa. But the Qatar base would allow Franks to get closer to the action and stay in the same time zone.

The exercises also represent a new step into the US limelight for Qatar, a gas-rich country with barely 600,000 people.

More than 4,000 US military personnel were already in Qatar. Most are at the al-Udeid air base south of the capital, the biggest warehouse for US munitions and materiel in the Middle East.

PHOTO CAPTION

General Tommy Franks