10,000 US troops ready to boost Gulf build-up

MORE than 10,000 part-time troops have been ordered to prepare for active duty and movement overseas beginning as early as this week to support a US military build-up near Iraq, Army officials said yesterday.

The Reserve and National Guard soldiers, including engineers and intelligence specialists, were told in recent days that they could be rapidly deployed between January 10 and late February, officials said.

The alert came as the US Navy hospital ship Comfort sailed out of the port of Baltimore, Maryland, for the Gulf region to prepare to handle casualties in any invasion of Iraq ordered by President Bush. An Army Reserve spokesman would not be specific about the new deployment. But other army officials said most of the troops were likely to go to the Gulf, where the military is moving quickly to double the nearly 60,000 US troops now there for a possible war with Iraq.