Saudis Won't Let U.S. Troops Use their Soil this time!

[txkypreacherskid]

Saudi Arabia Won't Allow U.S. Troops

By Donna Abu-Nasr
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, August 7, 2002; 9:57 AM

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia –– Saudi Arabia has made clear to Washington – publicly and privately – that the U.S. military will not be allowed to use the kingdom's soil in any way for an attack on Iraq, Foreign Minister Prince Saud said Wednesday.

Saud said in an interview with The Associated Press that his country opposes any U.S. operation against Iraq "because we believe it is not needed, especially now that Iraq is moving to implement United Nations resolutions."

"We have told them we don't (want) them to use Saudi grounds" for any attack on Iraq, he said.

Saudi Arabia has no objections to the United States continuing its decade-old monitoring of Iraqi skies from the U.S. air control center in the kingdom, Saud said.

But a change in the regime of President Saddam Hussein must come from the Iraqi people, he said. "For the government of Iraq, the leadership of Iraq, any change that happens there has to come from the Iraqi people. This is our attitude," Saud said.

Last week, Iraq invited U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix to Baghdad for talks that could lead to a resumption of the inspections after more than 3½ years. President Bush has said he is committed to a regime change in Iraq and war rhetoric is running high. Washington has dismissed the Blix invitation as a ploy.

Saudi Arabia invited U.S. troops for the 1991 Gulf War to help defend the oil-rich nation against Iraqi forces.

© 2002 The Associated Press

[txkypreacherskid]

The Saudis, the strict fundamenalist Muslims, need to take their oil and stick is where the sun doesn't shine. May a thousand diseased gnats, attack every Saudi terrorists' armpits.

[txkypreacherskid]

Originally posted by CORNERBACK_BLITZ
Translated: I want US protection, but dont want Saddam to gas my country.


Exactly BLITZ!! We ought to defile their soil by Nuking them. That's an idea. Let's have a worldwide Radical Muslim convention in Mecca, then Nuke 'em. That way the world would be a lot safer, and all these heathen could die martyrs.

[txkypreacherskid]

Laptops Gone From Afghan War Center


The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 7, 2002; 1:19 PM

TAMPA, Fla. –– Two laptop computers are missing from the military command center coordinating the war in Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations is investigating the computers' possible theft from U.S. Central Command, office spokesman Maj. Mike Richmond said. The computers disappeared Thursday.

Central Command would not release further details, such as what information was stored on the computers and what office or person was responsible for them.

Central Command, led by Army Gen. Tommy Franks, is responsible for U.S. security interests in the Middle East. It oversees the continuing military operation in Afghanistan and has been deeply involved in planning for a widely expected U.S. effort to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The headquarters is part of MacDill Air Force Base.

Just this week, aa government audit was released that showed the Justice Department lost 400 computers last year. Most belonged to the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and many had classified information. The agencies said poor tracking of equipment was likely to blame, not theft.

© 2002 The Associated Press

[txkypreacherskid]

U.S., Britain prepare logistics in Gulf for military campaign



SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, August 7, 2002
LONDON — The United States and Britain are taking steps to ensure logistical support in the Persian Gulf for any military campaign against Iraq.

Gulf defense sources said the two countries are seeking facilities for fuel and water as well as ports for warships in Gulf Cooperation Council states, Middle East Newsline reported.

The United States has been building its supply stockpile, the sources said. They said the U.S. Central Command's logistics unit, based in Kuwait, has been ordering what the sources term vast quantities of aviation fuel and mineral water.

The sources said Oman and Qatar have become the key areas of supplies and logistics for U.S. and British forces. But they said other countries are being approached as well including Saudi Arabia, regarded as the most ardent GCC opponent of a U.S. attack on Baghdad.
[On Wednesday, the London-based Al Hayat daily quoted witnesses as saying the United States is completing a project to refurbish an abandoned military air base in northern Iraq. The newspaper said trucks from the Turkish border have been transporting everything from metal and cement to radar components over a 60-day period.]

So far, Saudi Arabia has refused repeated U.S. requests to allow for the deployment of up to 50,000 troops as well as the use of the kingdom's air bases as launching pads for an attack on the regime of President Saddam Hussein. But the sources said Saudi Arabia could allow France or Britain naval facilities.

A U.S. defense delegation is expected to begin a Gulf tour later this month. The delegation will consist of officials from the Defense Department and State Department and will seek financial assistance from the GCC for the war against Iraq as well as logistics assistance from Gulf Arab states.

Bahrain and Qatar have been asked to store U.S. ammunition and other supplies. In addition, the sheikdom is said to have been asked to host thousands of U.S. troops as well as store ammunition.

The London-based Al-Quds Al Arabi daily said the U.S. purchases are taking place in Saudi Arabia. The newspaper said the goal is for the U.S. military to have enough supplies and fuel for several months of operations.

Britain has sought to obtain Saudi support for naval facilities, the sources said. A British delegation has been sent to the Gulf for talks with Kuwait and the Saudi kingdom. The sources said London has asked Riyad for additional port facilities to facilitate the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the region.

[txkypreacherskid]

Deployment Extra
August 7, 2002


Joint Chiefs back Saddam ouster
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


The Joint Chiefs of Staff, after months of some members resisting a new war, now fully back using military force to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Administration officials said in recent interviews that some Joint Chiefs members initially raised some objections or "what ifs." The chiefs worried about casualties, Saddam's likely use of chemical weapons against American troops and an open-ended occupation of Iraq once the dictator is evicted from Baghdad.
But, as the Pentagon's hard-line civilian leadership has pressed the Bush administration policy to remove Saddam, all six chiefs have come to a consensus, two administration officials said.
"The chiefs have come over because they can read the handwriting on the wall," said an administration adviser. "Now the senior leadership is on board."
The adviser said that in past administrations, if a four-star general offered "my best military advice" that war was ill-advised, the civilian leadership was likely to heed the warning.
But the Bush administration is stacked with civilians who believe military force against Iraq is the only viable way to oust Saddam and get rid of his potent arsenal. They do not take such advice as the last word.
These advisers are led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a man who, as one uniformed officer said, "has the guts for war."
The chiefs' unanimity on Iraq comes as the Defense Department is stepping up war planning in anticipation of an invasion, perhaps as early as the winter of 2003.
In war fighting, the chiefs of the four branches, the vice chairman and the chairman principally are advisers to the defense secretary and provide support to the combatant commander. The war-fighting chain of command goes from the president to the defense secretary to the combatant commander.
For Iraq, the commander is Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who heads U.S. Central Command. Gen. Franks briefed President Bush at the White House on Monday night on war options. Central Command runs U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf, as well as in counterterrorist missions in Afghanistan.
Two administration sources said yesterday that the most likely plan would involve about 200,000 air, ground and naval troops, as well as wide-ranging air strikes and aid to indigenous anti-Saddam forces.
Sources say all of President Bush's top national security advisers agree on the need to topple Saddam by covert or overt action. But Mr. Bush has not settled on a war plan, and no attack is imminent, they say.
A linchpin of any final war plan will be psychological-warfare programs to convince Iraqi military commanders that they will suffer great losses if they do not join the fight against Saddam or, at least, refuse to take up arms.
One administration official said that if this strategy is to work, the United States must build a sizable ground force in Kuwait.
"A bigger force they put there sends an unambiguous message — 'If you fight, you will die,'" the official said. "The smart thing to do is to put a large number of troops on the border."
The source also said that Bush civilian appointees are finding that it is not always easy to find generals who, like them, believe there is no alternative, in some instances, to war.
"The system has created a military that is a professional bureaucracy," said the official, who asked not to be named. "Once you make one star, they start sending you to charm school."
Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters on Monday to be skeptical of reports that nations in the region would not support U.S. action against Saddam.
"I think if you sat down with the leadership of any country over there that you'd find they have a very low regard for that fellow," Mr. Rumsfeld told representatives of the National Association of Black Journalists. The Pentagon released a transcript of the interview yesterday.
"You'd also find they're much smaller countries, and they're much weaker," he said, in a reference to Kuwait, among other neighbors.
Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, propelling the United States into a war against Saddam that lingers today in the form of enforcing northern and southern no-fly zones.
"When you have a neighbor that is that big and has that big an army and has chemical weapons and has used them on its neighbors then it's like the little guy in the neighborhood's fairly careful about what he says publicly," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "I don't know of anyone I've talked to out in the region who would walk across the street to shake Saddam Hussein's hand."
Mr. Bush justifies tough talk about Iraq on the grounds that Saddam is aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons that could one day be used against the United States.

[Ghostrider]

Lets just takeover Saudi

[FKA HEB Sack]

I don't think we should attack Iraq. If we can't topple Saddam internally, leave it alone. However, if Iraq attacks Saudi Arabia, chuckle and let it have it.