[A-List] US imperialism: Iraq

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Pentagon boosts Gulf force
By Peter Spiegel in Washington and Carola Hoyos at the United Nations in New
York
Financial Times: October 31 2002

The Pentagon has been ordering new troops to the Gulf in a further sign that
the US is preparing for war with Iraq should weapons inspections fail.

Most of the new deployments - which come as US diplomats have signalled
Washington's willingness to compromise on a United Nations resolution to
send inspectors back into Iraq - are command personnel and elements of the
US navy. There could be three or four aircraft carrier groups in the region
by December but the US still lacks the number of ground troops needed for an
invasion, a figure many experts put at 250,000.

But military analysts said the pace of movements and planning had increased
in recent weeks. This weekend sees the departure of the USS Constellation
carrier group, which will head towards the Arabian Sea.

The group, which includes 8,000 sailors on eight ships, will join the USS
George Washington and the USS Abraham Lincoln, two other carrier groups in
the region. It will be followed by the USS Harry Truman, which is scheduled
to head to the Gulf in early December.

Analysts said a significant amount of material, which might also be heading
to locations in the Gulf, had recently been loaded on to transports at
Californian ports.

The Pentagon has sought to portray most of the activity in the Gulf as
exercises or routine rotations of carrier groups. But many of the troops -
including 600 personnel being moved from US Central Command headquarters to
Qatar in December - could remain in the region.

New signs emerged that the UN Security Council was coming close to agreeing
on the wording of a resolution on Wednesday. George W. Bush, US president,
met Hans Blix, head of the UN's weapons inspectors, and Mohammed ElBaradei,
head of the International Atomic Energy Agency - an indication the UN could
dispatch the two men and their teams shortly.

France and the US are edging closer to a compromise over language that
decides whether the US must wait for the Security Council to convene before
it could go to war.

Diplomats now believe a vote could take place at the end of next week. This
would mean inspectors could be in Iraq by the end of November.