U.S. Rattles Saber At Saddam

The Pentagon has ordered the Navy to prepare two aircraft carriers and two amphibious assault vessels for possible action in Iraq, defense officials said Friday.

The orders, sent in the last two days, require the Navy to have the vessels ready to sail to the seas around Iraq within 96 hours after a certain date, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. They declined to specify that date.

The ships and the escorts of cruisers, destroyers and submarines, would bring a powerful military force to the region, adding several warships, scores of strike aircraft and roughly 2,500 Marines to the forces in the region.

If the order to sail is given, the USS George Washington battle group would be sent from the Atlantic fleets, officials said. The George Washington returned from the region on Dec. 20 and is best prepared for action.

Either the USS Abraham Lincoln or the USS Kitty Hawk battle group would be sent from the Pacific fleets. The Abraham Lincoln is in Perth, Australia, having just left the Persian Gulf region. The Kitty Hawk is in port in Japan.

The defense officials declined to say which amphibious assault groups are most likely to be sent to conduct operations in Iraq. Those groups center on a large, carrier-like vessel that can launch helicopters and carry Marines.

Already in the region is the carrier USS Constellation and the amphibious assault ship USS Nassau, officials said.

In addition, the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort is expected to put to sea from its port in Baltimore next week and prepare for action, military officials said Friday. It will be headed to Diego Garcia, a British island in the Indian Ocean where the United States bases numerous military aircraft.

The 1,000-bed floating hospital will initially sail with a crew of 61 civilian mariners and 225 Navy personnel, including enough doctors to support two operating rooms, said Marge Holtz, spokeswoman for the Navy's Military Sealift Command. Hundreds more will be flown to the ship as needed, she said.

The white-painted vessel, marked with red crosses, is equipped to handle combat casualties, including those injured in chemical or biological weapons attacks, Holtz said.

It may leave as early as Monday, Holtz said.

The ship was last deployed during the summer for exercises with U.S. allies in the Baltic Sea.

In the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Comfort sailed to the waters around Manhattan to treat people injured in the collapse of the towers. In the end, those services were not needed, as local hospitals were able to handle the survivors.

The vessel instead served as a floating hotel for rescue personnel working at the World Trade Center site, providing meals, beds and laundry service for more than 2,200 rescue workers.

The Comfort, a converted oil tanker, is only one of two hospital ships of its size. Its sister ship, the USNS Mercy, is based in San Diego.

Meanwhile in Iraq, U.N. arms experts marked the first month of resumed inspections visiting two sites, including an engineering factory that is linked to Iraq's Military Industrialization Committee.

The inspectors went to the al-Nasr al-Atheem State Company in Baghdad, a plant formerly known as the State Heavy Engineering Company, the Iraqi Information Ministry said. The visit was a follow-up to one on Dec. 16. Much of its equipment has dual civilian and military uses.

In their second visit Friday, the inspectors went to al-Assriya Company, an old Baghdad factory that produces arak — an anis seed-based spirit that is virtually the national alcoholic beverage of Iraq, the Information Ministry said.

During the inspections in the 1990s, after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War, the United Nations destroyed tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons and dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

However, the inspectors do not believe they had found all of Iraq's banned arsenal by the time they left ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes in late 1998. After the airstrikes, Iraq refused to allow the inspectors to return and insisted it had no weapons of mass destruction.

The new round of inspections is being carried out under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 that entitles the inspectors to visit any facility or property at any time.

So far, reviews of Iraqi cooperation have been mixed.

Nearly 200 sites have been checked, but there are still hundreds of others yet to be examined. On one occasion earlier this month, the inspectors had difficulty gaining access to certain rooms in a Baghdad facility on a Friday as the officials with the keys were at home for the Muslim sabbath.

Iraq promised this week to hand over a list of hundreds of others for questioning — as U.N. experts are allowed to request — but hinted if any of them leave the country with inspectors, they would be unpatriotic.