Gulf military staff moving to Qatar
Core US military command staff responsible for operations in the Gulf and Central Asia will be shifted from their Florida headquarters to Qatar in November – suggesting further preparations by the Pentagon for a possible military assault on Iraq.
Officials at Central Command, based in Florida, said the move would be a one-week exercise, but other officials who discussed the matter said it was possible the command staff would remain indefinitely at al-Udeid air base in Qatar.
One official said the administration was considering moving the entire Central Command headquarters permanently to Qatar, although that is separate from the November movement of a core staff.
Central Command said besides shifting the core staff to Qatar, it would also send its newly-constructed mobile headquarters as part of the exercise, dubbed “Internal Look ’03.” The mobile headquarters consists of several modular buildings designed for command, control and communications.
For more than a decade, Central Command has conducted bi-annual exercises in which the core staff tested its communications and command capabilities in a war scenario. But it has never moved the core staff to Qatar or another Gulf nation for exercises, two defence officials said.
During the 1991 Gulf War, in which Iraq’s army of occupation was forced from Kuwait, the Central Command staff was moved from Florida to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to run the war.
For months, the US military has been building up its command and communications facilities and equipment at al-Udeid air base in Qatar, which likely would be a major US asset in any war against Iraq.
Among the capabilities being developed at al-Udeid is an air operations centre that duplicates a facility used by US forces in Saudi Arabia. In the event the Saudis refused permission to use the facility for US attacks on Iraq, the facility in Qatar would provide a viable alternative, officials have said.
Central Command’s top commander, Gen Tommy Franks, has run the 11-month-old war in Afghanistan from his Tampa headquarters. Periodically, he visits the region to consult with his subordinate commanders and local government officials.
Among other Central Command forces in the Gulf region are more than 5,000 US Army soldiers at Camp Doha, Kuwait, a few thousand US Air Force personnel in Kuwait and a few thousand US sailors in Bahrain.
