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| Middle East |
| Pentagon Prepares to Move Troops to Persian Gulf |
| 2002-12-27 |
| Friday, December 27, 2002 By Bret Baier WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ordered a number of military units put on alert for deployment to the Persian Gulf, Fox News learned Friday. Some are being told to be ready to deploy, if needed, within 96 hours' notice. "A lot of things will start moving in the next week or so," a defense official told Fox News. The units are from several services and include two Navy carrier battle groups and two Marine amphibious assault groups. One battle group is attached to the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which returned to port in Norfolk, Va., on Dec. 20 following a six-month deployment in the Gulf. check.... Rumsfeld has also ordered the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship based in Baltimore, to be activated and readied for possible deployment. check... About 230 personnel will be told to get the ship ready to sail, but at this point its full medical staff will not be ordered aboard. Some units in the Air Force's Air Combat Command have also received "prepare to deploy" orders from the defense secretary, with planes due to leave the U.S. within the next 12 days. check.... They include F-15E Strike Eagles from Seymour-Johnson AFB in North Carolina, F-15C fighter-bombers, B-1 and B-52 bombers and AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) planes. check..... The B-52s will be deployed to Diego Garcia, a British airbase in the Indian Ocean, but all the other planes will be based in the Gulf. check.... B-2 bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, which flew to Afghanistan and back again on missions, are not currently scheduled for deployment. uhhh, say again. |
| Posted by:Frank Martin |
| #6 From NBC: " The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, surrounded by French tugboats, leaves the harbor of Marseille on Friday. The carrier will be on standby in case of a strike on Iraq" site shows a picture of her very low in the water. |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2002-12-27 16:16:44 |
| #5 Picture the Sixty Minutes watch... tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick... Say, maybe on the way home they could take a swipe at North Korea? |
| Posted by: Chuck 2002-12-27 15:54:22 |
| #4 Bomb-a-rama, the B-2 carries precision munitions. Currently configured, it carries up to 16 2000lb JDAMs. That's 16 targets it can destroy during one mission. I looked through all the press reports and saw another glaring ommission. The F-117 Stealth fighter. Just as I thought, it carries the same special security classification as the B-2. We never mention it until after. |
| Posted by: Steve 2002-12-27 15:09:04 |
| #3 More detail coming in from another source ( komo tv in seattle) "Either the USS Abraham Lincoln or the USS Kitty Hawk battle group would be sent from the Pacific fleets. The Abraham Lincoln is in Perth, Australia, having just left the Persian Gulf region. The Kitty Hawk is in port in Japan" and "Already in the region is the carrier USS Constellation and the amphibious assault ship USS Nassau, officials said." Kitty Hawk and contellation are of the same class of carries, non nuclear, early 1960's carrier used primarily as training carriers. During the Afghanistan takeover last year, the Kitty Hawk serverd as a floating Special OPS platform. |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2002-12-27 15:03:58 |
| #2 With precision weapons constituting a much larger percentage of the arsenal, there probably isn't any real reason to use the B-2. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2002-12-27 14:54:06 |
| #1 B-2s have a special security classification. They won't be mentioned until after they drop their bombs. The AF has been building portable shelters on Diego Garcia to house them, reports suggest that up to a dozen may be "busy" on the first night of action. They are always ready to deploy. |
| Posted by: Steve 2002-12-27 14:45:13 |