Free Republic

CAMP DOHA, Kuwait, March 15 — The American-led coalition that is preparing to topple Saddam Hussein's government is planning for a complex invasion of Iraq to begin even as allied troops are still arriving in the region, senior commanders say. With three dozen ships carrying heavy tanks and equipment for the Army's Fourth Infantry Division waiting off the coast of Turkey because of a political standoff, the military is scrambling to put together a backup plan for the northern front of a war with Iraq. In Kuwait, only a portion of the 101st Airborne Division's forces — equipped with Apache...

BENEATH the same harsh desert sun, 300 miles apart, two leaders yesterday rallied their forces for a clash of armies — and of civilisations — that is now just days away. At a makeshift parade ground in northern Kuwait, Lieutenant-General Jeff Conway told a vast sea of troops that he had supreme faith in their ability and promised that their superior weapons, greater striking power and longer reach would prevail. At almost the same moment Sheikh Abdul-Razzaq Saadi was exhorting thousands of the faithful in Baghdad’s Mother of all Battles Mosque. “Oh God, strike the oppressors,” he cried. “Oh God,...

THE US’s most senior general in the Gulf yesterday took time out to address the massed ranks of Britain’s forces in the Kuwaiti desert and to give the clearest sign yet that war with Iraq is imminent and that British troops will be expected to play a key role in whatever action the military commanders are planning to take. In a call to arms, the commanding general of the 1st US Marine Expeditionary Force, General Jim Conway, flew in by helicopter to address troops from the 7th Armoured Brigade and the 16th Air Assault Brigade at a camp near Kuwait’s...