Gulf buildup leaves US with few options

BRUSSELS - There is no way Washington can keep big forces in the Gulf if United Nations arms inspections in Iraq take more than six months, analysts say.

It would have to use the forces, remove them or halt the buildup.

Naval task groups could bob in waters within striking distance of Iraq for months. But planners would face problems of how to rotate more than 100,000 ground troops, keep them in training and keep their morale high enough for combat.

A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday that UN resolutions provided timelines of "somewhere between six and 12 months" for inspections.

This raised the possibility that any United States-led strike against Iraq - widely seen as coming late next month or in early March - could be delayed.

The Pentagon has ordered the deployment of 62,000 extra forces since Saturday, and defence officials say the US could be ready for war by mid- to late-February with more than 150,000 soldiers, sailors, Marines and aircrew.

Withdrawing most of this force over summer for a fresh buildup later in the year would lower the coercive pressure on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions on disarmament, the analysts said.

The costs of keeping the forces in the Gulf for many months are not in themselves exorbitant - personnel get paid and fed wherever they are. But they would start to soar once rotations started.

Lawrence Korb of the Council on Foreign Relations, who was an assistant secretary of defence in the Reagan Administration, said rotation was necessary after a month to keep troops at peak efficiency. But it would become a costly and frustrating exercise for the Pentagon once the force level neared 200,000.

"Then you have to start calling up reserves and you'd have the problem of how long you keep those reserves," he said.

Tim Garden of the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College, London, said that deployment levels had not yet crossed the threshold beyond which they would be difficult to rotate with regular troops back at home. "But it's beginning to get a bit close."

There is also the question of how to keep forces in training, especially if they are Marines stuck on ships, although the US does have training facilities in Kuwait.

Korb said the US had probably not anticipated pressure from allies, especially Britain, to delay the trigger date for the countdown to hostilities past the January 27 weapons inspectors' report to the UN.

"My guess is that the British are probably saying, 'Let's postpone military action until the fall'," he said, suggesting a wait of more than six months.

Britain has sent its aircraft carrier Ark Royal to the Gulf, but its armoured capabilities and ground troops are still being readied.

Ellie Goldsworthy, of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies in London, said she could not see the US and Britain letting the situation drag on for months. She expects a campaign launch around the third week of next month.

"I find it extraordinary that after all the political heartache they would hold off for months," she said.

"This is the best opportunity the US and the UK are going to have."

If the inspectors do not provide a trigger on January 27, Washington could turn to Iraq's December declaration on its weapons programmes to demonstrate it was in "material breach" of UN resolutions, she said.

Goldsworthy was sceptical about theories that the US could postpone action until summer, despite its night-fighting capabilities, because this would mean ground troops sleeping openly in searing daytime heat.

Leaving troops and ships in the region beyond the summer would also tie up forces that may be needed for other hotspots, including in Asia if tension with North Korea remains high.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: Iraq