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Bush Orders Battle Staff And Ground Troops To Kuwait
The Bush Administration stepped up its preparations for war against Iraq yesterday by ordering the deployment of key US Army and Marine Corps battle staff and ground troops to Kuwait. The move, the first non-routine dispatch of conventional troops to the Gulf in recent months, came as Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, prepared to order smallpox vaccinations for up to 500,000 troops. The deployment of the battle staffs of the Army's V Corps, with headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Marine Corps' 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Pendleton, California, largely completes the command structure that would manage an Iraqi invasion. More than 600 battle staff from US Central Command, which would have overall responsibility for an Iraqi invasion, are to move to a new air base in Qatar next month from their headquarters in Tampa, Florida. General Franks has his naval command staff in Bahrain, headquarters for the US 5th Fleet. That will probably lead to an increase in the number and intensity of al-Qaeda attacks like we've been seeing. I hadn't thought there was a connection between Iraq and the terror machine except at a casual level, but the Bad Guys seem to be doing their best to draw attention and resources away from Sammy. I'm beginning to think there is a connection there, very well hidden in the background, and that Iraq is more important to them than I originally thought... Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-10-14 |
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