WASHINGTON – One of the U.S. military’s most elite combat divisions – the “tip of the spear” for an Iraq attack – received deployment orders yesterday as mobilization for war with Iraq went into high gear.
Pentagon officials said the Army’s 101st Airborne Division “Screaming Eagles,” based at Fort Campbell, Ky., went on alert with orders to be prepared to move to the Persian Gulf region.
“The deployment of the 101st Airborne is another good indication that we are getting very close to D-Day,” said Dale Davis, a retired Marine intelligence officer specializing in the Middle East.
The 20,000 troops and 270 helicopters that form the 101st Airborne would lead the way as the so-called “tip of the spear” if an invasion of Iraq is ordered.
The force specializes in ultra-fast air mobile assaults.
From aircraft carriers in the Red Sea and bases in Kuwait, the elements of the 101st Airborne as well as the 82nd Airborne are expected to swoop in behind enemy lines in Iraq on M-60 and CH-47 helicopters protected by Apache and AC-130 gunships in the opening stages of the ground invasion.
Their mission will be to seize Iraq’s strategically vital oil fields and air bases that would be turned into “forward deployment” staging areas for ground combat operations under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s plans to quickly paralyze and surround Saddam Hussein’s elite forces, military officials said.
Military officials said that final decisions on whether to go to war won’t be made until mid-month – after chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix reports again to the Security Council on Feb. 14 and the end of the Muslim Haj pilgrimage on Feb. 13.
But it was clear that throughout the armed services, the machinery of war was being revved up.
Turkey yesterday agreed to allow U.S. forces to upgrade bases on its soil in preparation for war with Iraq.
Turkey is expected to be a major staging area for a northern front in the war on Iraq.
Pentagon officials want to launch Special Forces raids and dispatch the Army’s high-tech 4th Infantry Division into northern Iraq from Turkey to surround and squeeze Saddam’s strongholds of Baghdad and Tikrit.
Also yesterday, Pentagon officials said three more aircraft carriers – the USS Kitty Hawk, the USS Nimitz and the USS George Washington – are preparing to steam to the Persian Gulf region, joining three more aircraft carriers already in place.
In Kuwait, where 113,000 U.S. troops are already based, tank units in the Udairi Mountain range along the Kuwait-Iraq border were conducting live-fire exercises yesterday.
Operators of one Abrams tank participating in the exercise painted “United Airlines Flight 175” on the tank’s gun barrel – in commemoration of the hijacked flight that crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
Britain also announced yesterday it is increasing its air power in the Gulf region to 100 aircraft with deployment of Tornado and Harrier attack jets as well as Hercules Transport and Chinook helicopters.
Britain expects to have 42,000 troops in the Gulf region by the end of the month and a third of its Royal Air Force.