Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 18, 1995 TAG: 9508180061
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The action was a response to what the Pentagon called ``unusual movements'' by Iraqi armed forces, possibly toward Kuwait.
Defense Department officials said they were moving tanks, ammunition and supplies closer to the Persian Gulf, where they would be available to Marines and the U.S. Army.
They said an aircraft carrier scheduled to leave the gulf today will be kept there, preserving a continuous American carrier presence in the Gulf.
And senior military officials said an unspecified number of ``leading-edge forces'' in the United States are being told to be ``ready to quickly move on reasonably short order'' to respond to events in Iraq. The troops are not being put on formal alert but are being told to step up preparedness.
``These defensive measures ... are being taken solely, I repeat solely, in response to what we see happening in Iraq and for no other purpose,'' a U.S. official said in a briefing at the Pentagon. Two senior U.S. military leaders conducted the briefing on condition they not be identified by name.
One official said the United States had detected ``potentially challenging'' activities by the forces of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
``This involves all of Iraq's military forces: the air arm of their military force, the air-defense arm of their military force, the regular army and the Republican Guards and other special forces,'' the official explained. He said the unusual activities continued Thursday. ``They have not yet ceased.''
The Pentagon would divulge few details about the Iraqi movements and would not explain what might be motivating Baghdad. The information comes from U.S. reconnaissance satellites and other intelligence sources.
The official said the activities appear directed outside Iraq, rather than against Kurdish or Shiite rebels in Iraq. The troop movements seem aimed toward the south. They were ``not necessarily immediately focused on Kuwait, but focused in that direction,'' he said.
Clinton administration officials seem to hope that the recent defection to Jordan of two of Saddam's top aides and two of his own daughters may be bringing political events inside Iraq to a climax, and, perhaps, lead to Saddam's downfall. But the administration also openly fears the defections might provoke the Iraqi leader into new military action against his neighbors.
``The defectors arriving in Amman, Jordan ... had some effect in Baghdad, some effect perhaps in the stability of the government and some effect in terms of what the government may have been planning to do,'' said a Pentagon official.
But he and other U.S. officials said the Iraqi troop movements they considered unusual have occurred over a period of about five weeks - a time before Saddam's top aides and daughters left the country. And the U.S. officials said they have no evidence of any Iraqi troop movements directed specifically against Jordan, where the defectors remain.
Earlier this week, Defense Secretary William Perry said the United States would retaliate if Iraqi forces were to attack Jordan.
Baghdad on Thursday warned Washington of the ``fatal delusion'' of making a military move against it, the Associated Press reported.
U.S. military action ``will only backfire and finish off their arrogance,'' the army's Al-Qadissiya newspaper said.
``Iraq is a mountain of pride ... [and] the heroic Iraqi people, thanks to their valiant armed forces, have promoted their cohesion and rallying around their beloved leader,'' the newspaper said, according to the official Iraqi News Agency, monitored in Cyprus.
Elsewhere Thursday, two top U.S. officials, Assistant Secretary of State Robert Pelletreau and Special Assistant to the President Mark Parris, arrived in Amman on a special mission aimed at persuading Jordan's King Hussein to sever all economic links with Iraq.
by CNB