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(回答先: 地上部隊に湾岸派遣命令、イラク攻撃準備で(日本経済新聞) 投稿者 FP親衛隊国家保安本部 日時 2002 年 10 月 12 日 17:41:26)
washingtonpost.com
U.S. Boosts Its Ability To Plan War
Pentagon Orders Marine, Army Staffs Sent to Kuwait
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 12, 2002; Page A01
The Pentagon has issued orders to the Army's V Corps and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force to deploy headquarters staffs to Kuwait, marking the first non-routine dispatch of conventional ground forces to the Persian Gulf region in anticipation of possible military action against Iraq, defense officials said yesterday.
The move will bring to the Gulf hundreds of Army and Marine planners who would coordinate any thrust by land forces into Iraq. With headquarters elements of the Navy and Air Force already in place and a U.S. Central Command contingent due to arrive in the region next month, the addition of the ground force groups will complete the command structure that would manage any invasion.
The decision to send the Army and Marine teams follows other steps by the Bush administration in recent weeks also pointing toward heightened preparations for war, including a gradual buildup of military equipment in the Gulf region, training exercises by U.S. troops likely to take part in an invasion and accelerated maintenance of aircraft carriers that could be sent from U.S. ports.
Defense officials said the deployment order will help shorten the time required to mount an invasion of Iraq should President Bush decide to attack. At the same time, they said, it will underscore the administration's resolve to take military action if necessary, keeping pressure on both Iraq to disarm and the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution for toughened inspection measures consistent with U.S. wishes.
Overall responsibility for any invasion would rest with Central Command, which has announced plans to send about 600 troops -- roughly one- third of its headquarters staff -- from Florida to Qatar next month to set up a command facility. But each of the command's major military components -- air, sea and land -- will have its own subordinate headquarters in the region.
The Navy already has a major operations center in Bahrain, headquarters for the 5th Fleet. The Air Force, which has been enforcing "no-fly" zones over northern and southern Iraq for a decade, has a state-of-the-art command center at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Defense officials have indicated, however, that Saudi reluctance to back all-out war against Iraq may compel the United States to set up an alternate air command post in Qatar.
The Army has a command element in Kuwait overseeing operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Central Command's area of responsibility. But the V Corps staff, which is coming from its headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany, will focus on Iraq. So will the Marine group, which is based at Camp Pendleton in California. Both contingents will take up quarters in Kuwait, officials said.
Signaling Pentagon plans to send more armored vehicles and other military equipment to the Gulf soon, the Navy has sought commercial bids for two large merchant ships. According to documents issued by the Navy's Military Sealift Command and reported by Reuters yesterday, U.S. military officials are arranging for one ship to load in California in mid-October and the other to sail from ports in Belgium and Italy around the same time.
The two new commercial tenders bring to six the number of large cargo ships reported to have been chartered by the Navy since August. U.S. military officials have described the earlier shipments as supportive of military exercises in Kuwait and Jordan.
Since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when a U.S.-led coalition pushed Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, the Pentagon has positioned substantial stocks of military vehicles and supplies in the Gulf region to facilitate a rapid deployment of U.S. forces. Enough is now stored in the Gulf states and on ships near the British base of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, located within a few days sail of the Gulf, to equip more than 10,000 Army troops and about 15,000 Marines.
The United States also has a substantial number of troops in the area, although tens of thousands more would need to be sent before the launching of any invasion of Iraq. The Army has a brigade of more than 5,000 soldiers in Kuwait, and about 1,000 Marines have just completed 10 days of training there. Two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups are within striking range of Iraq. And Air Force warplanes and crews are stationed at bases in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Additionally, U.S. and British officials are discussing the possibility of moving B-2 bombers from their base in Missouri to Diego Garcia.
The Marine exercise, initially intended to last three weeks, was cut short after the fatal shooting of one Marine and the wounding of another by gunmen described by Kuwaiti authorities as terrorists. Marine officials said yesterday that plans to practice an evacuation operation were canceled after the Kuwaiti government requested that the Marines end the training and move back aboard their ships.
On Tuesday, two Kuwaiti gunmen ambushed Marines participating in the exercise on Failaka island, killing Lance Cpl. Antonio J. Sledd, 20, of Tampa, and wounding Lance Cpl. George R. Simpson, 21, of Dayton, Ohio. The gunmen moved to a second location and fired on more Marines before being killed by return fire.
Sledd's mother has asked President Bush to transfer her son's twin brother, who is also a Marine, from Okinawa to MacDill Air Force Base and reduce the chances of her losing a second child. "We already sacrificed one of our sons for our country," Norma Figueroa wrote. Pentagon spokesman Victoria Clarke told reporters yesterday that the Navy was considering the request.
In the latest of what has become almost daily airstrikes against Iraqi air defense facilities, U.S. and British warplanes enforcing no-fly zones in Iraq attacked a surface-to-air missile site near Tallil, about 160 miles southeast of Baghdad.
c 2002 The Washington Post Company
ttp://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14619-2002Oct11?language=printer
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