Qatar On Deck For Big U.S. Base?

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Saturday played down the significance of a report that the U.S. military was looking at Qatar as a backup location for its Gulf command post in the event it is forced to evacuate its facility in Saudi Arabia.

"We're constantly moving people from one place to another place," Rumsfeld told reporters after a meeting in Washington. "We do move people constantly from country to country and from region to region."

Citing unidentified defense officials, the Washington Post reported on Saturday the Pentagon had prepared a contingency plan to move the base. But that did not reflect any decision to abandon the Saudi base, the paper said.

Saudi Arabia has made clear that U.S. troops could not operate from Saudi soil in any move on Iraq, although many U.S. officials contend the Saudis might cooperate behind the scenes.

Kuwait and Turkey might still allow U.S. forces and airplanes to operate from their territory by providing the space and bases necessary for air or ground assault.

Still, some military experts suggest any attack without Saudi Arabia would be more dangerous.

"It is definitely more risky in terms of human lives," said Christopher Helleman, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information. "If we have to kick the door down by using a smaller border, we're going to lose more people. And creating a major base in another country is going to make it several times more expensive."

Late last month, U.S. officials denied a report in The Guardian newspaper in London that the Pentagon already had begun moving its Saudi-based military headquarters to Qatar, a small, wealthy Gulf state neighboring Saudi Arabia.

The Guardian reported on March 27 that the Pentagon had begun moving the heart of its Gulf forces from remote Prince Sultan Air Base in the Saudi desert to Qatar because of Saudi opposition to a possible U.S. military attack against Iraq.

But unidentified officials told Reuters at the time there were no moves afoot to transfer forces out of the kingdom.

The Post report said the plan calls for relocating the base only if it comes under attack or Saudi authorities attempt to deny access to it.

Since last fall, the Post said U.S. authorities have installed equipment and taken other steps to make Qatar's Al Udeid Air Base an alternate command center, increasing the number of warplanes there and raising the troop level to about 2,000 in a large military tent city in the desert.

Dozens of U.S. warplanes and about 4,000 military personnel are still in Saudi Arabia, it said.

While the United States has a major military presence in other areas of the Gulf, including Kuwait and the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain, its air command headquarters in Saudi Arabia could be a key to any new war in Iraq.

The White House said in January that President Bush wanted to keep the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia despite reported grumblings from Saudis that U.S. forces had overstayed their welcome since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

Saudi and other Middle East Arab leaders stressed to Vice President Cheney on his visit last month that they did not favor any new war with Iraq despite Washington's charges that Iraq's hunger for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons posed a threat to the region and the world.

The Post reported that the Qataris had made it clear to Pentagon officials that they would not seek to place limits on U.S. operations.

In any event, analysts say forcing out Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has become a tricky proposition for the United States because of the fighting on the West Bank.

Just weeks ago, the Bush administration was talking as though Saddam was a new target in the war on terrorism, and military action was an imminent possibility.

But the violence between Israelis and Palestinians has thrown the region into turmoil and further polarized the Arabs, which makes an American military move against Iraq politically more unlikely, many analysts say.

"It is absolutely not viable in the near future," for America to launch an attack on Iraq, said retired Rear Adm. Eugene Carroll, now an independent analyst in Washington. "The small region simply cannot contain two conflicts at the same time."

Even if the fighting between Israel and the Palestinians is contained, Carroll said, "keeping the peace will remain a top priority. An attack against Iraq could throw another match on the kindling."

"The Arab nations simply are not going to tolerate our support of Israel and a decision to attack another Muslim nation," said Joe Stork, an adviser for Washington-based think tank Foreign Policy in Focus. "Even if the leaders agreed with the United States that Saddam is bad for Iraq, their people wouldn't support it."