Back to the future: US quietly gears up to blast Saddam

Buildup of American forces in Gulf, including a new command center in Qatar, indicates that serious action is being planned

With little fanfare, the Bush administration has built up its military presence in the Gulf in recent weeks, ostensibly to support the operations against the Taleban and Al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. Admittedly, the buildup so far seems to mostly involve support personnel, but it is difficult not to see this as the pre-positioning of US forces for a possible onslaught against Saddam Hussein, an operation that will reverberate far beyond the Gulf in terms of George W. Bush’s strategic objectives. It could also signal a parting of the ways between the US and Saudi Arabia, whose complex relationship, with all its veiled secrecies, has undergone severe strain since Sept. 11.

While American backup forces have been strengthened, the US military has been moving command and control systems from Saudi Arabia, which has made it clear that it will not allow its bases to be used for an attack on Iraq, to other locations in the Gulf, with Qatar the focal point. US officials have disclosed the existence of a new operational base in the desert outside Doha that the Americans have been quietly establishing for some months. The equipment is being used to set up a command center that could take the place of a state-of-the-art facility at the Prince Sultan Air Base, a vast complex 80 kilometers southeast of Riyadh, which the Saudis have ruled off-limits for any offensive action against Iraq.

The exact capabilities of the Combined Aerospace Operations Center (CAOC), completed in June 2001 and designed to direct a complex and sustained military operation in the Gulf, are classified. But a former US officer who has seen it calls it “something out of science fiction,” able to coordinate the movement of hundreds of aircraft at any one time over a vast area.

The US military says that since Sept. 11, its strength in the Gulf region and Central Asia has shot up from under 25,000 (nearly all of them in the Gulf) to nearly 80,000. Some 7,000 of these are in and around Afghanistan, which means that the deployment in the Gulf has more than doubled in the last seven months, the highest it has been since the mid-1990s. Most of the personnel in the Gulf are there to support operations in Afghanistan, officials say. But the expansion of the logistics effort if indeed, such it is can also embrace operations against Iraq, with combat forces airlifted in at the last minute to marry up with support elements already in place.

Significantly, the number of US troops in Kuwait, a potential springboard for a thrust against Saddam on Iraq’s southern border, has been beefed up from 5,500 to around 10,500. Lieutenant General Tommy Franks, the overall commander of US forces in the region, says he’s considering sending in more combat units to the emirate.
With fighting still spluttering in Afghanistan, it will probably take several months for the Americans to complete preparations for a sustained assault on Iraq. But as the British and other allies start replacing US troops in Afghanistan, the Americans will be in a better position.

Last month, the Pentagon, the world’s largest purchaser of petroleum, tendered for some 7.4 million barrels of fuel above its normal contracts for its Middle East operations over the previous three months. That’s the biggest buy since the 1991 war and dwarfs the supplemental purchases made during NATO’s air war against Serbia in 1999. This could be for operations against Iraq.

The new order, mostly for jet fuel, is for delivery to Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Israel and the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, a key supply base which is used by B-52 bombers for long-range missions. The US military usually buys between 100 million and 180 million barrels of petroleum a year. The Americans also want to stock up on “smart” weapons after the Afghanistan campaign. Boeing reported last month that is was cranking up production of the satellite-guided 2,000-pound bunker-busting JDAM bomb from 1,000 a month to 1,500 by the end of May. Production could hit 3,000 a month once supplies of parts are improved.

The future of the US deployment in Saudi Arabia now seems to be in some doubt. The Americans and Saudis insist that nothing has changed, but it has. There were strains in the relationship before Sept. 11 and these have intensified. The Washington Post reported in January that Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite believed the US had “overstayed its welcome” and that less conspicuous forms of military cooperation should be found. The Saudis were increasingly uncomfortable about the US military presence, which they felt had become a political liability to the kingdom and the Arab world. Even ordinary Saudis admit that they are not happy with the continued US deployment more than a decade after the Gulf War and particularly since the threats from Iran and Iraq which it was meant to deter are no longer considered to be potent.

In Washington, some top people in the Pentagon and Congress are saying the US should consider withdrawing its forces from Saudi Arabia because of what is seen as the kingdom’s lackluster support for George W. Bush’s war against terrorism and because of the restrictions Riyadh imposes on US military operations. This view was expressed most starkly by Senator Carl Levin, who heads the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, when he said in January that he had an “uneasy feeling” that the Saudis were not doing enough to curb Islamic extremists and that US forces “were not particularly wanted” in the kingdom. “They act as though somehow they’re doing us a favor,” he said.

The Bush administration has repeatedly denied that it was moving forces out of Saudi Arabia despite the reported grumbling from Riyadh. But such a redeployment should not be ruled out; indeed, it has been mooted for years.

A recent report quoted Saudi sources as saying that “large numbers” of the 4,500 US personnel, mostly air force, at Prince Sultan were being mobilized and moved out along with bulky equipment loaded on transport aircraft. “The activity is constant,” one said.
American forces have been based in Saudi Arabia since 1990, along with some 320 aircraft, including F-15 and F-16 fighters, F-117 stealth attack jets and airborne tankers that monitor the no-fly zone over southern Iraq.

Three years ago, in April 1999, journalists accompanying then-Defense Secretary William Cohen on a Gulf tour (to drum up support for operations against Iraq) reported, quoting “senior officials” with him, that he had discussed reducing US force levels in Saudi Arabia with the defense minister, Prince Sultan. The Pentagon and Sultan swiftly denied the reports as “totally wrong.” But General Franks himself has admitted recently that moving equipment out of Saudi Arabia to other parts of the Gulf began 18 months ago.

Indeed, the existence of the new base in Qatar was not acknowledged until Vice-President Dick Cheney visited the Gulf, in a vain bid to drum up support for an attack on Saddam, last month. So who knows what else is going on in the region?

On March 11, The New York Times, quoting senior US military officials, reported that the US Central Command, headquartered in Tampa, Florida, and which controls operations in the Gulf region, had drawn up a contingency plan for moving out of Saudi Arabia, including dismantling the COAC and redeploying dozens of combat aircraft to other locations in the Gulf, more than a year ago.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Gulf War, has noted that the US presence in Saudi Arabia “would probably continue” as long as the United States could persuade the Saudis that it was necessary which seems to be diplo-babble for saying that it won’t be long now. Presumably, if Saddam is overthrown and Iraq does not fragment into Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite mini-states, the Americans would have to abide by the pledge they made before the 1991 war that they would pull out when their mission to protect the kingdom was completed.

But the Bush administration was looking beyond the Gulf in terms of its global strategy even before Sept. 11, its eyes on Asia and a resurgent China with which it would have to contend somewhere down the road. Controlling the oil wealth of the Caspian Sea is another strategic objective, which could diminish the value of the Gulf to one degree or another once Saddam has been taken care of. Iran could remain a problem, but a subdued Iraq would allow the US to intensify pressure on Tehran to conform to its diktat.

The Americans have already been extending their deployment in Central Asia to support their operations in Afghanistan. US forces, along with French, British and German units, have been installed at bases in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. Azerbaijan will probably be next. The Americans are even mulling moving back to Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam a major deepwater naval base they built during the Vietnam War once the Russians’ lease on the facility runs out in 2004. US bases are also likely to be established on the Black Sea in Romania and Bulgaria both eager to join NATO where equipment can be pre-positioned for any missions in the region. The modest US presence in Georgia could expand and Turkey will also probably assume greater importance in US strategic planning.
All of this, for one thing, points to an encirclement of Iran. But that will first need Saddam to be chopped and Iraq to be stabilized once he’s out the picture. So the US military activity in the Gulf right now could have some far-reaching implications. The problem is the fractious Iraqi opposition is no Northern Alliance and Saddam’s regime is not the Taleban. The US-led coalition flew 110,000 sorties against the Iraqis in Desert Storm about 20 times the number flown in Afghanistan over a similar period. The Americans may find they’ll need that aviation fuel.

Bush said last year that 2002 would be a year of war. Today, he told us that he has decided to remove Saddam Hussein. On the evening of 9/11/2001, Bush sat down with his advisers. They concluded that Saddam Hussein was most likely the ultimate author of the destruction of the WTC and the attacks on Washington, DC. They concuded that, given the only WMD at his disposal was anthrax, he would probably threaten to unleash anthrax attacks on the United States, should we attempt to point the finger at him for the attacks. Cheney and his staff were put on Cipro and moved to a secure location that night. The team then turned their attention to what could be done in the short term, while preparations were made for America's defense against Saddam's anthrax arsenal. They identified destruction of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network -- Saddam's accomplices, and low-hanging fruit in the war on terrorism -- as objectives that could be achieved in the relatively short-term, on a time scale of a few months, so they made those the key notes for the public face of the war on terrorism. They also concluded that Saddam's buddy, Yasser Arafat, would have to go, but that that would have to be an intermediate-range objective, given that the Clinton administration had imbued Arafat with an aura of respectability, in its pursuit of a Nobel Peace Prize for Clinton's mantlepiece -- a talisman to ward off the self-doubts and recriminations of Clinton's old age. While these secondary efforts were pursued, Bush enacted the most far-ranging action feasible under the circumstances in pursuit of Saddam's sleeper cells, including a system of secret miltary trials for terror suspects. He massively increased the budget for measures designed to contain the threat of bioterrorism, brought the anthrax vaccine program online again, initiated a crash program to develop anthrax decontamination technology, and ordered a huge ramp-up of smallpox vaccine production, just in case. Working fist-in-glove with Israel's president Sharon, he conceived a plan to neutralize Arafat by turning him into a hostage -- a prototype for the capture and hostage-ization of Saddam himself. He directed the FBI to stall the media as to the source of the anthrax, but gave the US's staunchest ally, Great Britain, a good look at the reality we are facing. Unprecedentedly, Blair's government openly warned Saddam that it was willing to undertake a nuclear first-strike if Saddam used biological weapons on the West. The public have been conditioned to expect an attack on Saddam, but they are also expecting this to take many months to put together -- which it will. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, Saddam will rue the day he ever chose to tangle with the United States. He will spend the rest of his days as a hostage to fortune, a caged animal. Death would have been more appropriate, but let us not complain too much. The important thing is that he be removed from the equation. We still cannot predict whether World War III, initiated by Saddam on 9/11/2001, will end up taking the lives of millions, or whether it will be a relatively straightforward win against the forces of evil. But the ultimate victor is not in doubt. Thank you, George W. Bush.

Bush is a pretty straightforward guy, so we might be gearing up to hit Iraq right now as the media is adamently predicting, however, let's be honest, GWB could be planning to hit the PA, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia itself, or my personal odds-on bet: Iran.

There has been an interesting line of public discussion in which the imminent attack on Arab states has been downplayed somewhat by Administration officials.

Of course, Iran is Persian, not Arabian, so we might very well be telling the whole truth about all of our current actions and future intentions.

And then POW! Tehran gets its comeuppance (and that new nuclear reactor never sees its first self-sustaining chain reaction)...

While Iran is definitely on the early target list, it's gotta be Iraq first. Saddam is far more dangerous right now than anyone in Iran will be for awhile, and GW Bush is eager to finish the job his father started. The encirclement of Iran is something I hadn't noticed, but its quite clear that its happening, all we need is the Iraqi piece of the puzzle. There are many more people in Iran (about 65.5 million) than in Iraq (about 25.5 million), so we can't handle the two countries in the same way, militarily. Besides, there are likely leftover elements of the old Shah's regime deep underground in Iran, who can be counted on to wrest power from the ayatollahs who deposed them a mere 23 years ago. Encirclement would help them get the military aid they need.

The Qataris are probably smart enough to realize that if they play their cards right, they'll get to administer the new Middle East after WW III. A quick look at the map shows their proximity to Iran, Iraq and Saudi sources of regime-threatening fundamentalism, you can see what they have to gain by making the US their partner. Besides, they've got things locked down tight there, that's why the world could have a WTO conference there. They don't have to put up with radicals visiting from everywhere, the way the Saudis do for pilgrimages, so they are freer to cozy up to the US.

I wouldn't worry about the multimillion dollar base in Saudi, we're going to get it back one way or another before this thing is over.

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