US paves way for war on Iraq
Attack base to be moved into Qatar to bypass Saudi objections
Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday March 27, 2002
The Guardian

The US Air Force has begun preparations to move its Gulf headquarters
from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, to bypass Saudi objections to military
action against Iraq, according to Saudi analysts and businessmen
involved in the relocation.

A senior executive of a Saudi contracting firm told the Guardian that
several companies had been invited to prepare bids to move computers and
electronics from the hi-tech command centre at Prince Sultan air force
base.

The independent Saudi Information Agency, based in Washington, reported
that US military trucks had been seen leaving the base at al Kharj, 50
miles south of Riyadh, and arriving at the border with Qatar in the
second week of March.

The vast al-Udeid air base in Qatar has become increasingly important to
the US air force since the Saudi government refused to allow air raids
on Afghanistan to be launched from its soil. The movement of trucks to
Qatar may represent a temporary redistribution of resources to pursue
the Afghan war, but the request for bids to move sophisticated equipment
suggests a more permanent relocation, analysts said.

The move to Qatar, which has been the subject of speculation in
Washington for the past few weeks, would allow the US to conduct an air
campaign against Iraq in the face of Saudi refusal to collaborate,
overcoming a serious obstacle to the second phase of the US "war on
terror".

It would also help alleviate the threat to the stability of the Saudi
royal family posed by Sunni Islamic militants for whom the US military
presence is a burning issue. Osama bin Laden has challenged the Saudi
government's legitimacy on the grounds that it permitted the American
"occupation" of Islam's holy sites.

A US central command spokesman confirmed the bids yesterday but insisted
they represented business as usual. "This is not uncommon. This is
status quo. We are moving stuff from point A to point B. This is an
ongoing process," Major Ralph Mills said.

At a press conference in Bahrain during his tour of the Gulf last week,
Vice-President Dick Cheney also denied there were plans to move. "We
have not made any plans to make any change in our military positions
with respect to Saudi Arabia," Mr Cheney told journalists. He added that
he had not discussed the issue during an earlier stop in Saudi Arabia.

But the Saudi contractor said his company had been invited to make a bid
for a "multimillion dollar contract" to move the Prince Sultan base's
equipment over the border to Qatar. "That is what we've been asked to
estimate. The bid process is open for three to four weeks, so now it is
about two weeks to the deadline," he told the Guardian, on condition of
anonymity.

An executive from a US contractor said his company had also prepared a
bid to install telephone switchboards in new US military housing at the
al-Udeid base in Qatar. He said the US army would maintain a presence at
Prince Sultan.

Ali Alahmed, a Saudi human rights activist who runs the Washington-based
Saudi Institute and the Saudi Information Agency, said: "It is clear
that this move is happening. We have this now from not one but several
sources."

"They've been running the full spectrum of support and combat aircraft
out of al-Udeid, so you would expect them to move resources out of
Prince Sultan to where they need them," said John Pike, a military
analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington thinktank. "But if they are
taking bids for a full-scale move, this would be the first concrete sign
of relocation."

There are currently about 4,500 US troops at the Prince Sultan base and
an unknown number of warplanes. Aircraft from the base are used to
patrol the southern no-fly zone over Iraq but, because of Saudi
sensitivities, planes from Kuwait are often used for retaliatory air
strikes against Iraqi air defences if the patrols are fired on.

The Saudi regime also refused to allow the US to mount air raids over
Afghanistan from the Prince Sultan base, but the state-of-the art
combined air operations centre, completed less than a year ago, served
as an electronic hub, coordinating the aerial campaign.

Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, has been adamant
in his opposi tion to a US attack on Iraq. At the time of Mr Cheney's
visit, he declared that Washington "should not strike Iraq because such
an attack would only raise animosity in the region against the United
States".

Qatar is seen in Washington as a more stable and willing host. The emir,

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, has received strong US backing since
overthrowing his father in 1995, and introduced democratic reforms.
Among Gulf leaders he has been the strongest advocate of ties with
Israel.

The al-Udeid air base, 19 miles south-west of Doha, is a modern
billion-dollar installation with huge hangars and the longest runways in
the Gulf.

The former head of US central command, General Anthony Zinni, now
Washington's special envoy to the Middle East, has said he began plans
to lessen military dependence on Saudi Arabia. "I wanted to have some
flexibility, so we didn't become totally dependent on one place," he
told the New York Times.

The US military presence in Saudi Arabia has been a continuing source of
friction on both sides, illustrated earlier this year by the case of Lt
Col Martha McSally, a US pilot who is suing the administration over its
requirement that she comply with Saudi rules by wearing a gown covering
her face and body when off-base.

Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate armed services committee,
recently called for the air force to move out of Prince Sultan base.
"There's a real problem when we're told that a country that's presumably
an ally of ours doesn't want us to be seen by its people," he told
journalists.

The apparent preparations to evacuate the Prince Sultan base are the
latest in a series of US moves preparing the ground for a US military
operation: central command has moved its service headquarters to the
Gulf; and special forces have set up a base in Oman and, according to
Turkish sources, have moved into Kurdish-run areas in northern Iraq.

There have also been unconfirmed reports, in the US press and from Iraqi
opposition groups, of a quiet US military build up in Kuwait to between
25,000 and 35,000 troops.
 

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