Kuwait doubts Iraqi missile threat
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U.S. marines have been exercising in the Kuwaiti desert.
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CNN's Suzanne Malveaux reports the U.S. is working through diplomatic channels to build support for a new U.N. resolution on Iraq (February 24)
CNN's Nic Robertson reports Iraq said it is 'seriously considering' U.N. weapons inspectors' demands that it destroy its Al Samoud 2 missiles (February 24)
CNN's Martin Savidge visits a former truck stop in Kuwait that is now a market and cafe 20 miles from the Iraqi border (February 22)
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KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait (CNN) -- Kuwait's defense minister says he does not believe Iraqi missiles were aimed at his country despite a report that German intelligence had detected Iraqi missiles along the Kuwaiti border.
Talking to reporters at Kuwait International Airport Monday, Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah said: "We will attack very hard if Iraqi forces come close or rockets come our way."
German newspapers reported Sunday that German intelligence had detected Ababil-100 missiles along Iraq's border with Kuwait and passed information about them to U.N. weapons inspectors.
The missiles have a range of between 100 and 125 kilometers (62-68 miles), within striking distance of Kuwait City from the border area. If present, they would be a violation of U.N. Resolution 949 which prohibits Iraq from threatening its neighbors.
In 1991, Iraq invaded Kuwait, leading to the first Persian Gulf War.
British Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon, who was in Kuwait Monday to visit British troops massing along the border, said he could not confirm the report but believed it to be "of concern."
On Wednesday, U.S.-British coalition warplanes patrolling the southern "no-fly" zone attacked an Iraqi mobile air defense radar and a mobile multiple-rocket system, the U.S. military said. The targets were near Basra, about 400 km southeast of Baghdad.
Recently, U.N. Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix ordered Iraq to begin destroying an even larger Iraqi missile, the al-Samoud 2, which has a range that exceeds the 150 km allowed by the U.N.
In other developments, Marines began landing Monday morning in the Kuwaiti desert after a 36-day trip from San Diego. Three waves of three Super Stallion helicopters landed carrying 400 to 500 Marines. The rest of the contingent of 2,000 Marines was scheduled to come ashore later in the day. The Marines were transported on three ships: the USS Comstock, USS Boxer and USS Dubuque.
Monday's landing of Marines from the 1st Marine Regiment of the 4th Marine Battalion, stationed on the U.S. west coast, followed the landing of several thousand Marines from the 2nd Marine Division, based on the U.S. east coast.
Those Marines landed in seven amphibious landing ships dispatched from the USS Tarawa.
There are currently more than 100,000 members of the U.S. military in Kuwait, training for a possible U.S.-led strike on Iraq.
