US Military Speeds Preparations for Iraq War

March 13, 2003
By Charles Aldinger and Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Speeding preparations for a "shock and awe" war with Iraq, the Pentagon is moving B-2 stealth bombers and a dozen more missile-firing warships to the Gulf region, defense officials said on Thursday.

The bat-wing, radar-avoiding B-2s, packing one of the biggest punches in America's military arsenal, began flying out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on Wednesday night, a base spokesman said.

Other defense officials told Reuters the Navy planned to move about a dozen missile-firing cruisers and destroyers from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf region in coming days to join more than 60 other U.S. ships arrayed there against Iraq.

The officials said the cruisers and destroyers, many carrying more than 100 long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, would soon move through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea.

"All are (missile) shooters," said one of the defense officials, who asked not to be identified.

The ships and bombers, believed flying to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, would be part of a massive "shock and awe" attack at the outset of any war against Iraq, using thousands of satellite-guided bombs and cruise missiles.

Officials said there were no current plans to move the aircraft carriers USS Theodore Roosevelt or USS Harry Truman from the Mediterranean into the Gulf to join the carriers USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Kitty Hawk and USS Constellation.

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