Posted on 02/09/2003 8:03:12 PM PST by Nick Danger
CAMP VIRGINIA, Kuwait (AP) - The key launch pad for a future war on Iraq bustles with tens of thousands of U.S. and British soldiers. Military convoys clog highways, and the entire northern half of Kuwait is being sealed off as a military operations zone.
"Every day this thing grows by leaps and bounds," Lt. Col. Jeffrey Helmick said.
"We're bursting at the seams," said Helmick, commander of the U.S. Army's 6th Transportation Battalion, which helps truck tons of supplies from ports of entry to desert camps near the Iraqi border.
Officials will say little about the total number of U.S. troops being dispatched to Kuwait before a possible war. Washington says war is likely to begin soon because Iraq has failed to rid Iraq of all biological, chemical and nuclear weapons - weapons Iraq denies it has.
About 113,000 U.S. troops are now in the Gulf, and that number is expected to climb to 150,000 by Feb. 15 - enough to launch at least the first stage of an invasion. Britain is sending 35,000 troops - including a quarter of its army and its biggest naval task force in two decades.
When troops arrive in Kuwait - usually in cargo planes or in commercial jets chartered by the military - they travel to base camps in civilian buses with curtains that are drawn so potential terrorists don't see in.
The timing of any possible war could be driven less by diplomatic maneuverings than by the complicated logistics required to set up and supply an invasion force. Bringing in tens of thousands of troops involves building new roads, camps and living quarters, in addition to ensuring adequate supplies of food, water, electricity, weaponry, ammunition and vehicles.
Judging from the intense activity at Kuwaiti ports, the massive military convoys blocking traffic throughout the oil-rich emirate and the words of U.S. soldiers on the ground, the job is just about done.
"We've got enough for whatever needs to be done. Now we're just continuing to reinforce it," said Sgt. Maj. Larry Stevens, spokesman for the 6th Transportation Battalion. "If the commander in chief gives the order, we don't have to wait for anything."
Camps are being set up throughout northern Kuwait, where a large ground force is massing in white tents, bustling mess halls and training grounds with shooting ranges, mock cities and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
At base camps there are gyms with state-of-the-art cardiovascular machines, movie theaters, fast-food restaurants set up in trailers and PXs stocked with everything from Coca Cola to DVDs to Mideastern tobacco pipes. A chapel set up in a tent at Camp Arifjan, the U.S. military's main logistics base south of Kuwait City, has heat, air conditioning and a digital hymn player.
This week, command-and-control systems that would be used in any strike on Iraq are being tested in a computer-generated exercise dubbed Lucky Warrior.
Kuwaiti police, U.S. Marines and an armored vehicle mounted with an M60 machine gun escorted a convoy of 30 heavy trucks carrying bulldozers, forklifts, graders and other engineering equipment across the desert Saturday from Kuwait's main sea port to Camp Virginia, a small base near the Iraqi border.
Soldiers in the convoy clutched their M16 rifles and talked of their hopes and anxieties surrounding a possible war.
Kuwait is grateful to the United States for leading the coalition force that drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War. It has welcomed allied troops now despite an official stance opposing war without U.N. approval. The United States says it will attack if necessary, with or without a new U.N. resolution.
The entire northern half of the emirate has been declared off-limits to civilians, to the annoyance of families who normally enjoy camping in those deserts at this time of year.
Despite pervasive pro-U.S. sentiment among Kuwaitis - a rarity in the Muslim world - three serious attacks on Americans here since October have killed a U.S. Marine and an American civilian contracted to the U.S. military. Shots have been fired on U.S. convoys carrying equipment and personnel.
"We're in danger every day," said 2nd Lt. Sarah Groen, 23, of Haymarket, Va., who commanded Saturday's convoy.
Inside the cab of one of the convoy's trucks, two sergeants asked an army chaplain how long they'd have to be away from home.
"Wrap your mind around a year," said the chaplain, 37-year-old Capt. Craig Johnson, of St. Louis, Mo. Even if a war went quickly, he told the soldiers, there would be many humanitarian operations and other duties to be performed in a postwar Iraq.
Hey, if we don't find much in the way of WMDs, I'm sure we'll be big enough to offer a sincere apology once the war is over.
Judging from the intense activity at Kuwaiti ports, the massive military convoys blocking traffic throughout the oil-rich emirate and the words of U.S. soldiers on the ground, the job is just about done.
Well, Security Council, what say ye?
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