The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, claimed that American-led forces were ready to go to war with Iraq, despite growing evidence that protracted diplomatic negotiations with Washington’s reluctant allies had set back military readiness.
The US and its allies had ”ample” forces in place if President George Bush decided to go to war, Rumsfeld said. ”We are at a point where if the president makes that decision, why, the department of defence is prepared and has the capabilities and the strategy to do that.”
However, US military preparations which were originally aimed at going to war in mid-February have slipped several weeks, partly due to Turkey’s reluctance to allow large numbers of US troops to use Turkish territory as a launching pad from which to open a northern front.
British deployments are even more delayed. About 8 000 British combat troops are in the Gulf, only a third of the total number the government has committed. The complete British contribution to a war — 42 000 army, navy and RAF personnel — will not be in place, acclimatised, trained, and ready for action until mid to late March, defence officials said yesterday.
Military experts said Rumsfeld’s remarks reflected a readiness to go to war in the event of a pre-emptive attack by Saddam Hussein or some other unforeseen event, but that the US commander, General Tommy Franks, still did not have the forces he needed to launch an invasion.
”Rumsfeld is absolutely right, and for that matter we could have waged the war back in October if necessary. But if you want to fight the war on Tommy Franks’ plan then there is a lot more that has to happen,” said Patrick Garrett, an analyst at the defence thinktank, GlobalSecurity.org.
Professor Michael Clarke, director of the centre for defence studies at King’s College, London, said there were sufficient forces in the region to start a war but not enough to finish one.
There are more than 130 000 American troops in the region, including a heavy infantry division and a marine division in Kuwait. There are four US aircraft carriers and their battlegroups in the Gulf and eastern Mediterranean, with a fifth, the USS Kitty Hawk, a few days away. The carriers could launch 400 warplanes, to add to the roughly 400 air force planes in the region.
Vital elements of the Franks plan are still not in place. That depends on attacking multiple targets simultaneously on two fronts, from Kuwait and Turkey, and perhaps a minor third front from Jordan.
But deployments to the Turkish front have been put on hold for weeks while Washington and Ankara have negotiated basing rights.
Yesterday, there were four ships waiting off the Turkish coast carrying equipment for the 4th infantry division. More than 30 more transport ships are on the way.
Once the tanks and other heavy equipment have been unloaded they then have to be driven or taken by rail to staging areas inland along the Iraqi border.
That, said Loren Thompson, a Pentagon consultant at the Lexington Institute in Washington, will be ”an arduous and protracted process”.
Meanwhile, the roughly 17 000 soldiers of the 4th infantry division will fly in from the US to join up with their equipment. Equipment from the 1st infantry division based in Germany, is also on trains bound for Turkey.
British heavy armour, including Challenger 2 battletanks, are beginning to arrive in Kuwait but will not be fully deployed until the end of the month.
Troops and ships could be diverted through the Suez canal to Kuwait should Ankara fail to agree to US terms. – Guardian Unlimited Â