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U.S. military planners moving to Qatar
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senior U.S. military planners will move to the Persian Gulf as early as this week to prepare for a possible conflict with Iraq, military officials told CNN. The contingent from the U.S. Central Command will go to Camp As Sayliyah in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar to staff the headquarters, officials said Tuesday. About 1,000 troops of the command eventually will be stationed at the base. A recent exercise by U.S. troops in Qatar tested their ability to run a war from the command center there. (Full story) "It's very significant that we have the command center there," said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Don Shepperd, a CNN military analyst. "Gen. [Tommy] Franks [head of U.S. Central Command], if he desires or decides to, can take his whole Central Command staff there and run the war from Qatar." Thousands of U.S. troops have been ordered to the region in recent weeks, and Britain announced the activation of about 1,500 reservists and the deployment of additional naval vessels to the Persian Gulf Tuesday in preparation for possible action against Iraq. Pentagon officials said President Bush has not yet made a decision to go to war. But the United States and Britain have been moving troops to the region to pressure Iraq to comply with U.N. resolutions demanding it give up its pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. "For the sake of peace, [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein must disarm himself of all weapons of mass destruction and prove that he has done so," Bush said Tuesday. "Should he choose the other course, in the name of peace, the United States will lead a coalition of the willing to disarm the Iraqi regime of weapons of mass destruction and free the Iraqi people." Saudi Arabia -- which has been reluctant to support a potential U.S.-led conflict with Iraq -- has assigned a senior military official to coordinate with U.S. and allied commanders at Central Command headquarters in Florida, CNN has learned. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeated suggestions that Saddam go into exile to avoid a war. "I still hope that he'll leave. And I hope that the country will be disarmed, and I hope that force will not have to be used. But in the meantime, we'll keep flowing forces," he said. U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq have found no "smoking gun," Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said this week. His group is one of two U.N. agencies searching for evidence of weapons programs Iraq was required to give up in 1991. ElBaradei said inspectors have found no proof Iraq lied when it declared to the United Nations that it has no prohibited nuclear weapons, and IAEA lab tests of samples taken in Iraq have so far found nothing suspicious. He added, however, that inspections were still in the early stages. Rumsfeld said Iraq has had a "robust" nuclear weapons program in the past. "With respect to chemical weapons, we know they not only have had them, but that they've used them," Rumsfeld said. "And with respect to biological weapons, the Central Intelligence Agency has said what it has said, and there's no doubt in my mind but that they currently have chemical and biological weapons."
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