British forces geared up Friday for a major logistical exercise on home ground, as the defence ministry denied a press report that advance parties of British troops would soon deploy to Kuwait.
Some 6 000 troops and 1 000 vehicles will take part in the exercise that begins this weekend in Hampshire, the southern English county that includes the key seaports of Portsmouth and Southampton.
”It has nothing to do with any future operations anywhere, other than the fact that we do exercises all the time to ensure that our people are trained and experienced,” a defense ministry representative told AFP.
She added that the exercise — which is codenamed Operation Log Viper and is the biggest of its kind since 1998 — has been in the planning for more than a year.
The last major exercise by British armed forces, Saif Sareea II in Oman last year, ended with Royal Marines and warships staying behind to join US-led operations in Afghanistan that led to the fall of the Taliban regime.
The representative also dismissed as ”wild speculation” a report in the Daily Telegraph newspaper claiming that advance parties of British troops would begin deploying to Kuwait within two weeks in preparation for an attack on Iraq.
”There’s no plans to deploy anyone additional to Kuwait at the moment,” she said. Kuwait already hosts Royal Air Force units that patrol the no-fly zone over southern Iraq alongside US warplanes.
British members of parliament are to hold a special debate on Iraq on September 24, the same day that the government is to issues a report it says will justify the need for tough action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Speaking on BBC radio, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw welcomed US President George Bush’s challenge to the United Nations to force Saddam to start abiding by UN resolutions.
”What he was saying was that the United Nations, the international community has to give Saddam Hussein a clear choice — compliance with the resolutions and an end to weapons of mass destruction or enforcement of the will of the international community by other means,” Straw said.
Asked if the solution to the crisis was a ”regime change” in Baghdad, as advocated by officials in the Bush administration, Straw replied: ”No, it doesn’t.”
While the British government would not be sad to see Saddam go, he said, ”the focus has to be on these weapons of mass destruction”.
Quoting defence sources, the Daily Telegraph said on Friday that ”contingency plans” were in place to position a light armored division in Kuwait, which borders Iraq to the south.
”US war plans will require a five-division assault on Iraq’s southern flank, including four of its own divisions,” it said. From the north, US airborne troops ”possibly supported” by a British air assault brigade would occupy northern Iraq, while US and British marines would ”most likely mount an amphibious attack from the northern Gulf”.
The newspaper also reported that Royal Air Force leave had been cancelled in preparation for an increase in ground strikes by US and British warplanes that patrol the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq.
But the right-wing paper, which backs a hardline stance against Saddam Hussein, said it would take at least three months to dispatch British tanks to Kuwait, ”ruling out any attack on Iraq this year”.
It also said that none of the British army’s 192 Challenger II tanks had been ”desertised”, despite an exercise in Oman last year in which the tanks’ engines became clogged with dust after a few hours in the desert.
Moreover, the British army’s SA80 main infantry rifle was also badly prone to jamming from dust, it said. – Sapa-AFP