U.S. military planners moving to Qatar
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| PERSPECTIVE |
CNN chairman and CEO Walter Isaacson, and Eason Jordan, CNN's president of newsgathering, in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal: "In planning for a possible war with Iraq, the Pentagon is considering something quite old-fashioned: letting reporters actually cover the fighting. This would be a good thing, for the military as well as the press and the public. "Both war-fighting and journalism have changed since the days when reporters like Ernie Pyle donned American uniforms to move with the troops and cover World War II. Even back then, there were occasional conflicts between the press and the military. ... "If journalists had not been allowed to cover the frontlines during World War II, there would have been no Ernie Pyle dispatches about the exploits that touched a chord in their hometowns and provided a sustaining link to America's heartland. Nor would there have been the picture of Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima that has provided a sustaining icon for future generations of American fighters." Full text
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VIDEO
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Families waved goodbye to thousands of U.S. troops and reservists as the buildup for a potential war against Iraq continues. CNN's Gary Tuchman and Frank Buckley report (January 7)
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(CNN) -- With events moving closer to a possible war with Iraq, here is a look at some of the latest developments around the world:
ROAD TO WAR?
• BRASS GOES TO QATAR: Senior U.S. military planners will move to Qatar as early as this week to prepare for a possible conflict with Iraq, military officials told CNN Tuesday. 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 for a possible conflict. Eventually, about 1,000 U.S. troops will be stationed at that base. (Full story)
• U.K. CALLS OUT RESERVISTS: British Defence Minister Geoffrey Hoon Tuesday ordered the mobilization of reservists and the deployment of additional naval vessels to the Persian Gulf in preparation for possible action against Iraq. Around 1,500 reservists are being called out initially and additional orders are likely. "I have today made an order under Section 541 to enable the call-out reservists for possible operations against Iraq," Hoon told the House of Commons. (Full story)
• NEW U.S. DEPLOYMENT: More than 25,000 soldiers and Marines are heading to the Persian Gulf region this week, and nearly 50,000 National Guard and reserve troops are likely to join them there by February 15 as the U.S. buildup for a potential war with Iraq continues, Pentagon sources said. A "significant number" of Marines from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force will head out, the sources said. Part of its headquarters staff has already been deployed to Kuwait. (Full story)
• FRENCH TROOPS: President Jacques Chirac has called on troops to be ready for deployment in case of hostilities, in the clearest suggestion so far that France would participate in military move against Iraq. (Full story)
WAR OF WORDS
• "We still have a lot of work to do before we can come to a conclusion that Iraq is clean. That would still require at least a few months," Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. (Full story)
• "The United States has escalated its dangerous, provocative and hostile acts against Iraq and the U.N. Observation Mission in the southern area [of Iraq]," said Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, according to the Iraqi News Agency. Sabri said U.S. troops involved in military excercises in Kuwait used live ammunition and entered the demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait. He urged Annan "to consider taking appropriate measures to impose respect for the international law and send a fact-finding mission to document the United States' violations."
IMPACT
• Rep. Charles Rangel introduced a bill in Congress Tuesday to reinstate the military draft, saying fighting forces should more closely reflect the ethnic makeup of the nation. The New York Democrat told reporters his goal is two-fold: to jolt Americans into realizing the import of a possible unilateral strike against Iraq, which he opposes, and "to make it clear that if there were a war, there would be more equitable representation of people making sacrifices." "I truly believe that those who make the decision and those who support the United States going into war would feel more readily the pain that's involved, the sacrifice that's involved, if they thought that the fighting force would include the affluent and those who historically have avoided this great responsibility," Rangel said.
• Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul met senior Egyptian officials to push for a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis as a Turkish newspaper printed a picture of what it said were Turkish tanks inside northern Iraq. Turkey is concerned that Iraq could break apart as a result of a war and it has said it would act to protect a small Turkmen minority in northern Iraq. Gul, on the first Middle East tour by a senior member of the new Turkish government, was in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Turkey, like the Arab world, wants to prevent a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq, which is under orders from the U.N. Security Council to acknowledge any banned weapons programmes. Ankara fears a war against neighboring Iraq would undermine its economy, spread turmoil in the region and tempt Iraqi Kurds to seek an independent state. (Full story)
