US orders 27,000 more troops to Gulf

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has ordered another 27,000 troops to the Gulf as part of a rapidly growing buildup for possible war with Iraq, defense officials said on Saturday.

The order, the second in 24 hours, took the total number of troops mobilized since Friday to about 62,000.

Defense officials said this meant the United States could be positioned for an attack on Iraq by mid-to-late February with a force exceeding 150,000 soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen.

Increasing pressure from allies for Washington to allow UN weapons inspectors to complete their work in Iraq has raised speculation in recent days about whether US war plans might yet be slowed.

But some experts said the new deployments indicated the United States was counting down to military action.

The latest deployment order was signed overnight by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and includes thousands of Marines, an Army airborne infantry brigade, a squadron of Air Force F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters and two squadrons of F-16CJ radar-jamming fighters.

On Friday, Rumsfeld signed orders to deploy nearly 35,000 troops, including plans to send 7000 Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and another 7000 from Camp Pendleton, California, as well as troops from other services.

Friday's order was the biggest since the Pentagon began a very public surge of forces in recent weeks to more than double the 60,000 US troops now in the Gulf region while President George W. Bush decides whether to order an invasion of Iraq over weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq denies US charges that it already has or is trying to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Of the 150,000 forces projected to be in the Gulf region by mid-to-late February, 100,000 are expected to be ground troops. The rest would be navy and air force personnel aboard aircraft carriers and ships or operating out of bases in the region in countries like Kuwait.

The Army is already sending armored and infantry troops from two bases in the state of Georgia and engineers, military police police and intelligence specialists from Germany.

The Air Force this week began sending B-1B bombers from Ellsworth, South Dakota, and will send both F-15C fighters and F-15E attack jets in coming days along with Predator unmanned spyplanes and radar aircraft.

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 1991 Gulf War.

While any invasion of Iraq would be likely to include initially far fewer than a quarter-million American troops, the current shift could grow more rapidly in January and February.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: Iraq