Convoys keep rumbling past huge American canvas city

By TERRI JUDD and ANDREW BUNCOMBE

Like an ugly mirage, a dirty green canvas city has sprung up from nowhere in Iraq's vast Western Desert in a matter of nine days.

Within its sandbank and barbed-wire ramparts pumps the heart of the American forces supply chain - LSA Viper.

Anyone who ever doubted the ferocious, greenback-fuelled might of the United States forces need only observe the 100km pipeline which has snaked out of Kuwait in just over a week and now pumps millions of litres of oil to the isolated logistical base.

A similar waterpipe, complete with purifying system, is only a few kilometres away from reaching the US base.

Within its boundaries lies the logistical wing of the Marine Air Group, a collection of hundreds of M*A*S*H-style tents on an airfield which has now become home to 2000 Marines.

Every day more are brought in from two ships waiting in the Gulf.

This patch of desert, once the sole territory of the odd goatherd, is now the bustling home of Marine Air Group 29 from North Carolina.

Like flies buzzing around a particularly tempting plate, helicopters circle, landing and taking off with frightening regularity.

A Black Hawk, used for casualty evacuation, descends in a storm of sand to be greeted by a team of khaki ambulances, which appear from nowhere.

Today a British helicopter forward arming and refuelling point is due to move in.

Its presence will mean the 3 Regiment Army Air Corps Lynx and Gazelles can operate more efficiently from the vital base during reconnaissance and attack missions.

"We are the largest airbase in Iraq right now," Gunnery Sergeant Jeff Christie explained yesterday with the pumped-up confidence one would expect of a US Marine.

It is his job to ensure that more than 1.1 million litres of fuel are fed into the J-FOB (Jalibah Forward Operating Base) war Machine each day.

Nearly 190,000 litres of water and 18,000 MRE (Meals - Ready to Eat) sit in giant stacks waiting to do the same for the men and women who now inhabit the camp.

In his southern drawl, Christie explains: "We have built this in less than a week. It has been a lot of work and long days."

As far as the eye can see giant containers lie side by side with hundreds of armoured vehicles and mountains of ammunition.

Row upon row of bulldozers line up next to equal columns of the distinctive flat, wide US Humvees.

Transporters carrying tractor-like building machinery and container lorries are interspersed with Humvees armed with machine guns forming a 20-minute procession.

Nearby giant radars circle incessantly near a landing strip where the imposing hulks of two CH 53 Sea Stallions the size of articulated lorries sit waiting to take off, their rotors pounding a deafening beat.

"In the last eight days we have had 1800 flights. We have eight Hueys, 16 combat attack Cobras and 12 CH46s and 21 CH53s for transporting cargo and troops," Christie explains with pride.

Convoys, 130 vehicles long, kick up the 30cm-deep sand, sending waves of it throughout the camp as they make their way constantly in and out of the main gate.

Southern Iraq is full of such beasts at the moment - huge lines of troops and machinery that are moving northwards relentlessly as the American and British forces advance on Baghdad.

Often they seem to stretch forever and even when one passes it is usually only a matter of minutes before a low rumble signals that another one is approaching.

It is a sound like no other - a low rumble that steadily builds, the closer one gets. The presence of a military convoy is initially something that is felt.

At first you don't really hear it, it is more something you sense - something you detect in that part of the inner ear that controls balance.

And when you spot it, it is not always immediately apparent what you are looking at.

Here on Route 80, the long, hot road that leads from Kuwait to Baghdad and beyond, the initial glimpse is probably going to be lost in a 27m heat-haze, the green of the armour glimmering on the road ahead. It looks as though it is made of liquid.

Very quickly its solidity becomes obvious. That low rumble has got louder, the sound of the caterpillar tracks on the asphalt has given it a hard, metallic edge. That grinding noise mixes with the sound of the diesel engines. The convoy sounds as though it is alive.

These convoys come in all sizes and contain a huge variety of equipment.

Sometimes they will simply be a handful of Land-Rovers or Humvees, lightly protected and moving quite quickly.

On other occasions they comprise a slow-moving fleet of fuel or water tankers - two things so vital to an army - their progress cautious and laborious. Sometimes it is ammunition, sometimes the trucks laden down with pontoon bridges.

On the move

* US forces have pushed into Iraq from Kuwait in armoured columns stretching over many kilometres

* Tanks and Humvees go first, followed by supply convoys protected by helicopters, including Apache fighting craft

* Captured airfields are used for rapid delivery of supplies

- INDEPENDENT

Herald Feature: Iraq war