Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: Barry Stoller Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 2:10 PM Subject: [C-I] US prepares for 'ground war' AP; AFP. 21 September 2001. Pentagon Orders More Planes to Gulf; Cuba's official press suspicious of "threats" in Bush's speech Bush engaged in "state terrorism": Zyuganov. Combined reports, edited. WASHINGTON, HAVANA and MOSCOW -- The Pentagon on Friday ordered more Air Force planes to support a buildup of U.S. firepower in the Persian Gulf area, as the Bush administration prepared to strike back at terrorism. The Pentagon has kept a lid on most information about military deployments following last week's twin terrorist attacks. Victoria Clarke, spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said the U.S. military is ready, but she did not comment on specific deployments. "You'll see a lot of activity," she said in an interview. "We're preparing for what could very well be a wide range of options. So, you will see a lot of people moving, you'll see a lot of equipment moving." The Air Force announced that 5,131 members of the Air Force National Guard and Air Force Reserve have been ordered to active duty. They are from 29 units in 24 states and the District of Columbia. Rumsfeld has said he expects 35,500 members of the Reserve and National Guard to be called up. The Pentagon is repositioning military forces to prepare for action, Rumsfeld said, but would not provide details. Other officials said both active and reserve forces are beginning to move. The Air Force is sending 100 to 130 aircraft to the Gulf region, a senior defense official said, including fighters and B-1 and B-52 bombers. Also, tanker aircraft began deploying from U.S. bases Thursday to establish an "air bridge" for refueling fighters and bombers as they cross the Atlantic. The Air Force has fighter aircraft in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and the Army keeps a virtually permanent presence in Kuwait with soldiers and war materiel sufficient to equip an additional 5,000 troops. The Navy's 5th Fleet headquarters is on the Gulf island emirate Bahrain, and it normally keeps one aircraft carrier on patrol in the Gulf year-round. It now has one in the Gulf and one nearby in the Arabian Sea; a third -- the USS Theodore Roosevelt -- left port at Norfolk, Va., on Wednesday en route to the Mediterranean. Each carrier has 75 aircraft aboard and is accompanied by a dozen warships. Early Friday in Japan, the USS Kitty Hawk, the only U.S. aircraft carrier stationed in the western Pacific, left its port in Yokosuka for an undisclosed location. The carrier has a crew of 5,500 sailors, naval aviators and Marines and typically carries 70 aircraft. A contingent of about 2,100 Marines also is in the Gulf, and a similar-size unit is headed in that direction. [N.B.] House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said bluntly that a ground war is expected. [N.B.] "We're going to have people on the ground somewhere, sometime and we're going to have to face these people -- go into the shadows where they live and work and take them out," he said Friday on NBC's "Today." AFP. 21 September 2001. Cuba's official press suspicious of "threats" in Bush's speech. The official Cuban press responded with marked suspicion Friday to US President George W. Bush's address before the US Congress a day earlier, bristling at what it deemed an implicit "threat" and saying the leader's words "inspired doubt." "The central themes of Bush's speech culminated in a threat and pressure, which immediately inspired doubt," the official daily Juventud Rebelde charged. The daily deemed as threats Bush's remarks that "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" and, "from this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." Cuba is one of seven countries the US State Department deems a state supporter of terrorism, along with Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, North Korea and Syria. Havana, for its part, has accused Washington of promoting state terrorism against Cuba for the past 40 years. Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov accused US President George W. Bush on Friday of waging "state terrorism" by threatening to attack the Taliban militia in Afghanistan. The United States wants to be "the judge and the hangman" at the same time, said Zyuganov, who heads the largest party in Russia's State Duma lower house of parliament. "That is genuine state terrorism," Zyuganov said, accusing the US president of "paving the way for a war against all countries he does not like." The communist leader said he was particularly irritated by Bush's call for nations to choosing sides, the US president saying Thursday that "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://TOPICA.COM/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
