Simulated Exercises Are Rehearsal for War
D O H A, Qatar, Dec. 9, 2002 -- In front of massive, Imax-sized screens and a bank of the most sophisticated computer and telecommunications equipment, Gen. Tommy Franks kicked off one of the most comprehensive computerized war simulations ever today.
For the exercise, dubbed Operation Internal Look, Franks and about 50 of his senior intelligence and operations personnel crowded bleachers in the most secure part of Qatar's As Sayliyah army base, where U.S. Central Command has set up a state-of-the-art mobile command center, the likely headquarters in the event of an attack on Iraq.
"This exercise will give Gen. Franks and the battle staff afront-line opportunity to learn new lessons and improve the command'sability to be decisive on the modern battlefield," said Jim Wilkinson, Director of Strategic Communications for CENTCOM.
According to a senior CENTCOM official, Franks began the exercise by telling his command staff to use the operation to seek ways to be quicker, better and more comprehensive. The official also said Franks saw Operation Internal Look as a way to fine-tune the headquarters.
The center is packed with equipment that can flash images of ships, troops and targets all over the Persian Gulf and let officers deliver commands instantly by e-mail and videophone. Operation Internal Look will not involve real troops. Instead, it's a computerized war simulation.
More than 1,000 command staff are in Qatar to take part in the weeklong exercise, along with about 400 British personnel. Thousands of other U.S. military staff are also taking part around the world. From now until next Monday, the operation will run 24 hours a day.
"This exercise in Qatar will find out whether we can connect the forces in the theater," said ABC News military analyst Tony Cordesman. "The combat troops. Our forces in Bahrain. The forward forces or ground components in Kuwait. We seem to have all of the links but until people have actually practiced this and worked together we don't know. And that's the key reason why this exercise in Qatar is so important."
Ready for the Real Thing
The exercise will be a simulation, but across the region, the military has already positioned nearly all it needs to deliver the real thing.
In Kuwait, just miles from the Iraqi border, the U.S. Army is at three times its normal troop strength, with enough heavy armor to supply two brigades and a task force of Apache helicopters.
For weeks, these troops have been carrying out a major, live-fire exercise, called Operation Desert Spring, under conditions very similar to what they'd see in Iraq. They'd likely be the first wave of any invasion.
"I would say, based off the training we do, we're very ready," said Lt. Col. Kenneth Gantt, U.S. Army. "Soldiers are prepared, the equipment is great and we have all the available resources and assets that we need."
In Qatar, the billion-dollar Al Udeid air base, with the longest runway in the Persian Gulf and space for more than 100 aircraft, is fully operational.On the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, the U.S. is building the high-tech, temperature-controlled hangers needed to house B-2 stealth bombers.
And from the USS Lincoln in the Gulf, pilots enforcing the southern no-fly zone over Iraq are dropping more bombs.
"There has been more firing from the Iraqis in the recent months as well as they have moved more missiles down in to the no-fly zone," said Capt. Kendall Card, commanding officer of the USS Lincoln. "As a result you have seen much more enforcement from our side."
A Very Different War
Overall, there are now more than 50,000 U.S. troops in the region. While the Gulf War involved half a million U.S. troops, war in Iraq this time would be very different.
"Now, with less than a third of the force, we can do far more in terms of air power and be far more surgical, inflicting far less collateral damage than we did in the last Gulf War," said Cordesman. "And because of that we need fewer ground troops."
The U.S. already has all the air power in place it would need to deliver a massive air attack on Iraq. But most agree it won't be until mid-January that the military will have all the hardware for a full-scale invasion.
At that point, if the president puts the military on a war footing, it could take as little as three weeks to deploy the necessary troops.
Until then, many of the troops will stay in the U.S. — and the number of men and women deployed in the Gulf may actually decrease in the meantime as the military awaits the president's orders.
The military insists the training operations, and many of the other preparations for war, are part of regularly scheduled exercises. Yet no one doubts it is all clearly aimed at Iraq.