[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Pentagon moves 3rd Army HQ to Kuwait: New war in the offing?

[Al Kagan]

>Delivered-To: akagan at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
>Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 10:39:57 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
>From: Stephen Labash <slabash at UBmail.ubalt.edu>
>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:7296] Pentagon moves 3rd Army HQ to Kuwait:  New 
>war in the offing?
>To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l at ala.org>
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>Pentagon switch in Gulf heralds wider war
>
>By Ben Fenton in Washington
>Telegraph UK (11/12/2001)
>
>THE Pentagon has moved the headquarters of its 3rd Army from America to
>Kuwait, apparently in preparation for expanding the war on terrorism to
>Somalia and elsewhere.
>
>Military analysts said the transfer of several hundred headquarters staff
>from Fort MacPherson, Georgia, to an undisclosed location in Kuwait was
>"significant".
>
>They said it would give Gen Tommy Franks, commander-in-chief of the
>coalition forces, a base from which to expand his campaign.
>
>Gen Franks said last week that he was considering sending more troops to
>Afghanistan. When asked which other areas his planners had been looking
>into, he mentioned Somalia, Sudan and Iraq.
>
>The 3rd Army provides the ground forces for US Central Command under Gen
>Franks and already maintains permanent units in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and
>Qatar.
>
>The move was confirmed by a spokesman for Central Command yesterday, who
>said: "They will have command and control of the ground forces in
>Afghanistan. They will also support the ground forces for the ongoing war
>against terrorism."
>
>There is an armoured brigade's worth of equipment already in Kuwait,
>principally ready to repel another invasion attempt by Saddam Hussein.
>
>Another brigade's worth of tanks and artillery is ready in Qatar and two
>brigades' materiel is on Diego Garcia, a British Indian Ocean base about
>five days sailing time from the head of the Gulf.
>
>Col Dan Smith, of the Centre for Defence Information, a Washington
>think-tank, said: "This is very significant, particularly in respect to the
>enlargement of the war against terrorism.
>
>"It is a clear sign that the [Bush] administration is thinking ahead to
>what it will do when it has finished in Afghanistan."
>
>The 3rd Army has experience of quick deployments to the region, having
>provided the command structure for troops in Saudi Arabia for Operation
>Desert Storm in 1991.
>
>The CIA and military intelligence agents have been scrutinising terrorist
>recruitment and training facilities in the Aceh region of northern
>Indonesia, in bin Laden's father's community of Hadhramaut in Yemen, and an
>alleged training and storage facility in Ras Komboni in southern Somalia,
>it was reported at the weekend.
>
>The Los Angeles Times quoted a senior government official as saying: "The
>main front after Afghanistan will be going after al-Qa'eda cells hither and
>yon."
>
>Information appearing on Electronic Telegraph is the copyright of Telegraph
>Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For
>the full copyright statement see Copyright
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu