US moves more tanks to Iraqi border

The US army recently moved weaponry and war supplies from Qatar to a base near the Iraqi border in Kuwait to check their condition and test procedures that would be used in the event President Bush orders preparations for war.

Army Secretary Thomas White, the military’s top civilian official, said the movement to Camp Doha in Kuwait was a training exercise designed to periodically validate the condition of war material and practice loading and offloading it.

“We have done a lot with pre-positioned stocks in the Gulf, making sure they’re accessible and that they’re in the right spot to support whatever the president wants to do,” he said.

“But we’ve done nothing specifically against any particular scenario” for war, he said.

White said the stocks that were moved to Kuwait in July were later moved back to their permanent position in Qatar, but a spokesman for Army Forces Central Command, Major Rich Steele, said the material - enough to equip a combat brigade of more than 3,000 soldiers - remains in Kuwait.

That amounts to a doubling of the war supplies now stationed at Camp Doha.

Steele said the extra supplies were needed because the Army had added two battalions - roughly 2,000 soldiers - to the existing force at Camp Doha over the past several months.

The soldiers were added over a period of months starting last fall to discourage Iraq from thinking the United States was so preoccupied with the war in Afghanistan that it was not ready to defend Kuwait, Steele said.

The war material includes tanks and other armoured vehicles, as well as fuel, ammunition and other supplies. The purpose of storing it in the Gulf region is to have it readily available to link up with additional soldiers who would be flown to Kuwait from Europe or the United States as reinforcements.

Army officials could not immediately say when was the last time pre-positioned war stocks were moved to Kuwait for inspection and testing. Kuwait would be a natural jumping-off point for any US land invasion of Iraq. More than 9,000 soldiers are at Camp Doha, training in the desert.

White stressed repeatedly that Bush has made no decision about war against Iraq and that it would be inappropriate for him to discuss possible scenarios or timelines for an Army buildup in the Gulf.