Senior US arms official to visit NZ to discuss Iraq

US Under Secretary of State John Bolton will visit New Zealand next week to discuss Iraq.

Bolton is a senior adviser to United States president George Bush and is in charge of arms control and international security at the State Department.

The high-level visit was confirmed today by a spokesperson for New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff and comes as the United States sends tens of thousands of troops to the gulf to prepare for a possible war with Iraq.

NZ Foreign Affairs spokesperson John Tulloch said Bolton would meet with Phil Goff on Monday to explain the US position on Iraq and seek support.

Mr Tulloch said New Zealand was expected to re-iterate that it would only support a UN mandated action against Iraq.

"New Zealand believes a diplomatic solution is preferable and force is only a last resort."

Any support considered would be humanitarian, medical or logistics as New Zealand was not in a position to provide military support in the short-term.

The SAS had just finished in Afghanistan and the Army in East Timor and both were re-grouping and re-training.

Bolton is also visiting Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines and comes as more troops are being sent to the Gulf.

The Pentagon last night ordered some units of the 45,000-member US 1st Marine Expeditionary Force to deploy from California to the Gulf region to join thousands of other American troops, according to defence officials.

Spokesmen at 1st Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters in Camp Pendleton, California, confirmed that an order to deploy "elements" of the big force was received this week, but would not say how many or exactly when and where they would go.

Other defence officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters that troops, aircraft and equipment from the 1st "MEF" would begin moving to the Gulf region soon. Other Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, were also expected to go in coming weeks.

The army is already beginning to deploy more than 11,000 soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division in the state of Georgia as well as hundreds of engineers and intelligence specialists from Germany to the Gulf in a new year surge of troops, warplanes and ships in case President George W Bush orders an invasion of Iraq. Nearly 60,000 US military personnel are in the Gulf and that number could double in coming weeks.

Bush said this week there was little evidence that Iraq's President Saddam Hussein would peacefully end programmes to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

On Friday, Bush rallied soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, the largest US Army base, saying "crucial hours" may be ahead and vowing that if they go to war against Iraq the United States was prepared to win.

"If force becomes necessary to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction ... to secure our country and to keep the peace, America will act deliberately, America will act decisively, and America will prevail because we've got the finest military in the world," Bush told thousands of cheering soldiers at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas.

Bush said some 1600 soldiers of the roughly 42,000 based at Fort Hood were now preparing for overseas deployments that he did not specify.

Approximately 75,000 US Marines took part in the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq when the American military led a coalition of more than 500,000 troops that drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

"Some elements of 1 MEF have been ordered to deploy," Lt. Dan Rawsom, a spokesman for the big California unit told Reuters by telephone from the Marine force's headquarters at Camp Pendleton, California.

He refused to be more specific, but the expeditionary force includes troops, attack helicopters, warplanes and other units at Pendleton, Miramar Naval Air Station and 29 Palms in California as well as a base in Yuma, Arizona.

Asked what types of troops and support units would be deployed, Rawsom would say only that "the Marine Corps brings a combined team to any fight."

On Wednesday, Army officials at Fort Stewart and Fort Benning, Georgia, said the 1st and 3rd brigades of the 3rd Infantry Division would soon begin moving to join the 2nd brigade of more than 4000 troops, who are already training in Kuwait.

The two brigades and their support elements of tanks, attack helicopters and other equipment would include more than 11,000 troops.

The US Army's V Corps said in a release from its headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany, on Wednesday that it was also sending hundreds of engineers, communications and intelligence troops to the region.

The moves respond to two orders recently signed by defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that put tens of thousands of Army, Air Force and Marine Corps troops on notice along with two aircraft carrier battle groups for possible action in the Gulf.

The ground forces ordered to deploy so far are far short of the more than 250,000 US troops sent to the region for the Gulf War. However, while any invasion of Iraq would be likely to initially include far fewer than a quarter-million American troops, the current number could swell rapidly in January and February.

Bush stressed from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Thursday that he had made no decision on whether to invade Iraq over US charges that Baghdad is developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. He has repeatedly warned that such a move may become necessary despite denials from Iraq that it is developing such weapons.

The Navy already has one aircraft carrier in the Gulf and one in the Mediterranean and said last week that two additional carriers could soon join them near Iraq.

In addition to about 150 strike and support aircraft aboard two extra carriers, Rumsfeld's order included preparations to send units from five wings of Air Force strike jets, heavy bombers and unmanned spy drones.

US officials said the Pentagon had last week alerted the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, along with troops from the 1st Armored Division and 1st Infantry Division in Germany for possible deployment.

- REUTERS and NZ Herald reporter Cathy Aronson

Herald feature: Iraq