The war against Iraq were nearing their peak yesterday, with more than 140,000 allied troops deployed into the emirate. “Everybody is geared up, and in Baghdad and here they’re expecting to go between March 15 and March 20,” said one British military analyst and business consultant, who has just returned to Kuwait from Iraq (US Navy photo/David Mercil)...

Monday, March 03 2003 @ 06:11 AM GMT 

Preparations in Kuwait for a US-led war against Iraq were nearing their peak yesterday, with more than 140,000 allied troops deployed into the emirate.

“Everybody is geared up, and in Baghdad and here they’re expecting to go between March 15 and March 20,” said one British military analyst and business consultant, who has just returned to Kuwait from Iraq.

Kuwait, invaded by Iraq in August 1990 and subsequently occupied for seven months, is by far shouldering the largest deployment of the US led-up military commitment.

Kuwait now hosts 111,000 US troops and, according to British sources, a 28,000-strong British contingent. Another approximately 3,000 soldiers from Gulf countries have already arrived here to help defend the emirate should it come under any Iraqi retaliatory attack.

Some 20,000 troops from the elite US 101st Airborne Division are also due in the region within a week, while a sixth US aircraft carrier and B-2 Stealth bombers are among the latest deployments. Along Kuwait’s northern desert border, the US Army’s Third Infantry Division and US Marine Corps have completed unprecedented military exercises with a focus on honing invasion strategies and fine tuning high-tech equipment.

However, Lt. Col. Larry Cox said exercises at the unit and command levels would continue “in this theater” of operations as forces continue to assemble. Any invasion is expected to be launched at night, with coalition forces holding the advantage through night vision, satellite technology and infrared equipment.

“There’s no point at where that will stop,” Cox told AFP. “There is a robust force capable of support and responding. If we need to increase that, we will, but now we have a capability capable of responding if asked to by the coalition leaders.”

Tensions across the tiny state have also heightened. Many Western expatriate families have also left Kuwait, and major American and British schools have closed amid embassy advisories urging non-essential people to depart the emirate.

Just south of the capital, the military is finalizing embedding procedures — not seen since World War II — for journalists, photographers, cameramen and technicians who will cover the invasion of Iraq if US President George W. Bush gives the order. “We’ve completed a fair amount,” Cox said.

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