POISED FOR THE PERSIAN GULF

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00965R000402700011-0
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
4
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
January 26, 2012
Sequence Number: 
11
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
April 1, 1984
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
File: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00965R000402700011-0.pdf473.52 KB
Body: 
STAT Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402700011-0 A_S'_CL-E !-,PPS' RED Oil PA'i By Richard Halloran NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE 1 April 1984 ROMPTLY AT 8:30 EVERY weekday morning, Lieut. Gen. Rob- ert C. Kingston, commander in chief of the United States Central Com- mand, strides into a briefing room at his headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., and asks his staff to be seated. An intelligence officer, standing at a lectern beside a large wall screen, flicks a switch to display a map of the region around the Persian Gulf. He runs quickly through the action of the previous 24 hours in the war between Iran and Iraq. Another flick brings up a satellite photograph of a new Ira- nian troop deployment. A chart provides fresh detail on the 115,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan, or the 25 Soviet ships in the Indian Ocean, or Soviet advisers in Ethiopia. The context in each case: threats to the industrial world's largest source of oil. General Kingston, known in military parlance as "the CINC" (pronounced "Sink"), asks a short question; the briefing officer gives an equally short reply. An operations officer takes the podium, brings up a list of American forces available to the Cen- tral Command, and highlights several points oh their training. A map of the Arabian Sea shows where an American aircraft car. rier and other warships have moved within the last 24 hours. A second map shows the disposition of American warships in the Persian Gulf. General Kingston asks another quick question in his Boston twang, and gets another quick answer. A third briefing officer gives a succinct forecast of weather that could affect military operations in the 19 countries within the Central Command's area of responsibility. A public-affairs officer takes three minutes to report on news that may affect the command. General Kingston says, "Thank you," rises and walks out to resume his duties as commander of the American military force that will fight to protect the oil lifeline from the Persian Gulf, if President Reagan so orders. In its four years of existence, first as the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, and then, since Jan. 1, 1983, as the Central Command, the force has become, in General Kingston's words, ?'a credible deterrent." Its assets, he points out, include the or- ganiza:icn of his headquarters; the combat units on call from the Arm}, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force; the positioning of arms and equipment close to the operating area; widening ac- cess to bases in the region, and the experience of 16 exercises in the United States and overseas and two overseas operations. In February 1983, a month after the command was formed, President Reagan responded to warnings from Egypt and Sudan that the mercurial leader of Libya, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, planed an air assault on the Sudan and a coup to overthrow the Sudanese Government. The President turned to the Central Command; 37 hours later, four Awacs radar and control planes arrived in Egypt to monitor Libyan air movements for the Egyp- tian Air Force. The President also deployed the air- craft carrier Nimitz off the Libyan coast to make F-14 fighters available for air cover. Administration officials said at the time that Mr. Reagan had let Colonel Qaddafi know he was pre- pared to order the destruction of the Libyan Air Force should the Libyan leader persist. Neither the assault nor the coup was attempted. Similarly, the Central Command dis- patched Awacs and supporting aircraft to Egypt two weeks ago, after a Libyan bomber attacked a city in the Sudan. The mission was the same: to dissuade Colonel Qaddafi from trying to over- throw the Sudanese Government. Even so, the command still has im- mense obstacles to overcome. General Kingston, a veteran of 16 campaigns in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and among the nation's most experienced combat leaders, says bluntly: "If we had to send a combat force into the Cen- tral Command area, we would start from almost zero in terms of combat power and support structure." The Central Command is 7,000 miles from its area of responsibility. It has few forces under its operational control - and these only when deploying. Spe- cial forces to operate behind enemy lines are inadequate. The command lacks sufficient air and sea transport, and acquiring it is proving to be slow. Access to other nations' military bases is dependent on the political winds of the moment; there is little long-term logistical support. The command has neither a communications annaratus nor an intelligence network in place. And the United States has no military alliances with nations in the region the command has been assigned to defend. All this raises serious questions of combat capability. Whether the Central Command could accom- plish any particular mission would depend on the strength of the adversary, the amount of warning time, and the speed with which deployment took place. The command's basic tactic would be a pre-emptive move - getting into position first in hope of deterring an adversary's strike. Clearly, the Central Command could handle the small Iranian units of poorly trained and badly led Revolutionary Guards that have been thrown at the Iraqi Army. Just as clearly, the com- mand would be in deep trouble if the Soviet Union's 30 divisions north of the Iranian border and in Afghanistan were to drive south. What is less certain is how well the command would per- Continued Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402700011-0 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0402700011-0 form in some crisis in between - whether it could assemble and deploy enough troops to stop. say, a full-scale Iranian invasion of Saudi Arabia. THE CENTRAL COMMAND, ONE OF SIX UNIFIED, MULTI- service United States commands, is responsible for military operations, security assistance and training of foreign forces in Southwest Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. reinforcements and Powers Act. Allies supplies. would have to be con- A Presidential deci- sulted: The Europeans sion would be only the are wary of any Amer. first step. Congress ican move that might would undoubtedly divert forces from Eu- have a say under the rope, even though they, much-disputed War its area of responsibility covers an expanse larger than the con- and the Japanese, are far more dependent on oil from the tinental United States, stretching from Egypt in the west to Persian Gulf than is the United States. Friendly nations would be Pakistan in the east, from Jordan in the north to Kenya in the asked for access to bases and for permission to fly over their south. Its primary mission was laid down in 1982 in Defense territory. The Soviet Union would be advised' that the United Guidance, the Defense Department's secret marching orders: States seeks only to stabilize a turbulent situation. The Soviet ..Our principal objectives are to assure continued access to news agency, Tass, has already warned that American actions Persian Gulf oil, and to prevent the Soviets from acquiring politi- in the Persian Gulf "are creating a grave threat to peace and in. cal-military control of the oil directly or through proxies." ternational security." In the late 1970's, plans for a force that could be dispatched to Once the order had been given, the Central Command's prob- trouble spots had kicked around the Pentagon for several years. lems would begin. The command has enormous political and The fall of the Shah of Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghani- military handicaps that make it different from the Atlantic, Pa- stan, both during President Carter's Administration, brought cific and European commands, the Southern Command for Latin the force into being. America and the Readiness Command that controls forces in the Today, the Central Command's immediate concern is to be United States. - ready to deploy forces should the war between Iran and Iraq Politically, the Central Command has no umbrella of pacts jeopardize the oil fields around the Persian Gulf. Iran has threat- like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Europe or the ened to retaliate for Iraqi attacks on its oil installations by clos- mutual security treaty with Japan. In its area of responsibility, ing the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly nine million bar- differences in political outlook are profound. Most nations in the rels of oil from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, region regard Israel as their main enemy, while the United Kuwait and Iran are shipped each day, providing 20 percent of States sees the Soviet Union as the threat. Islamic nations do not the non-Communist world's oil. American naval officers doubt want to embrace the United States, at least not in public, because of that Iran has the mines to shut a channel 30 miles wide, very American support for Israel. The recent criticism of the Reagan deep, and filled with swirling currents. But an air attack, or a Administration's Middle East policy by King Hussein of Jordan has batch of free-floating mines, or an artillery assault on a passing jeopardized hopes for military cooperation with that nation. tanker could send maritime insurance rates prohibitively high, Unlike the European Command in Stuttgart, West Germany, scaring off ship captains and owners. or the Pacific Command in Hawaii, the Central Command's "It's not so much Khomeini that's the problem," says one offi- Tampa headquarters is far from its area of operations. Unli cer, "it's Lloyd's of London." To prevent those insurance rates those and other commands. Command `-- no forGa from reducing the flow of oil, Administration contingency plans provide for sweeping mines, escorting tankers with frigates. a es in area, and no estab- flying air cover, or launching air strikes from an aircraft carries lished communications and intelligence structures. in the Arabian Sea. "We have contingency plans to handle every- The Defense Guidance of 1983 acknowledged these shortcom- thing from an energy shortage to the military situation," says an ings. It said: "We must acquire a reasonable assurance of official in Washington. "We began the planning in November achieving United States war-fighting objectives in Southwest and December, but we've gotten more serious about it in the last Asia by the end of the decade." That would include reacting to three or four weeks." everything from insurgency to Soviet invasion. At Central Command headquarters, an intelligence secti scrutinizes indicators an warnings rom the Central Intelli- gence Agency, Defense Iritelrgence Agency and National Se- curity Agency. A Combat Capabilities Assessment Group per- forms as a "fire brigade," running a constant check.on crises, not only around the Persian Gulf but in the Sudan; in Somalia and Ethiopia, with their continual skirmishes; and in Oman and Yemen, where Soviet-backed Yemenis have been probing the Omani border. Operations and logistic sections rework contin- gency plans. "There is nothing so perishable," says one officer, "as a contingency plan." In the field, prudent commanders take up slack to be ready if the bugle sounds. But before soldiers climb aboard air trans- ports, at least one nation in the command's area of operations -would have to invite the-United States to send forces. President Reagan has said the United States will not intervene on land without such an invitation, because of the fierce political opposi. tion that would arise otherwise. Moreover, says an officer in the Tampa headquarters, rines who could under- "an invitation is a mili- tary necessity." The Central Command has paratoopers or ma- take a "forced entry," but that would be hard to execute - and even harder to sustain with N ANY CONTINGENCY, AN EARLY ALERT WOULD be critical. With a five-day warning, an Air Force fighter squadron and a battalion of 800 Army para. troopers could be in the region within 48 hours of the or- der to go; B-52 bombers could be in action in the same time. By the end of a week, two more battalions of paratroopers and a brigade headquarters would bring the total to 3,000 soldiers. How quickly an aircraft car- rier, with its 70 to 90 planes, and a Marine Amphibious Unit of 1,800 marines could get to the scene would de- pend on where they were when the signal was given. A carrier is almost always in the Indian Ocean, but Ma- rine units come and go. Continued Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0402700011-0 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402700011-0 After that, things would slow down because of insuffi- cient airlift and sealift. It would take two or three weeks to bring in two more brigades of paratroopers and support units from Fort Bragg, N.C., to fill out the 82d Airborne Division. The first of the 12,000 marines in the Seventh Marine Amphibious Bri- gade, which includes infantry, artillery, tanks, fighter aircraft and combat support units, would begin to arrive in a week from Twentynine Palms, Calif. So would ships from the island of Diego Garcia, 2,000 miles to the south, with weapons, ammuni? tion, food and supplies for the marines. But it would take several weeks for the entire brigade to arrive, depending on air trans. port. More than a month would be needed for the Army's 24th In- fantry Division, with its armored personnel carriers and tanks, to arrive by ship from Fort Stewart, Ga. General Kingston, who won the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second-highest decoration, in Vietnam, would soon move his headquarters from its nondescript box to a forward base. To lessen the handicap of distance, the Central Command in December placed a forward headquarters aboard the.com. mand ship LaSalle in the Persian Gulf. But General Kingston does not hide his dissatisfaction with that arrangement. He told Congress last year that "a forward element afloat sends the wrong message to our friends and foes alike." What was needed, he said, was a forward headquarters ashore. That, he said, would "send a clear signal of United States resolve," providing "the right kind of presence at a mini- mum cost to the taxpayer and maximum benefit to the nation." Instead of permanently assigned troops, the Central Com- mand has a force list of 300,000 soldiers, sailors, marines and air- men from which it can draw. A ground force would come from three Army divisions and from a brigade of helicopter gunships. The Army's new, mobile light division will be available later. The Marine Corps would furnish a ground division and an air wing plus an infantry regiment and an air group. The Air Force has designated nine tactical fighter wings, a Strategic Projection Force of B-52 bombers, an airborne warn- ing and control wing of Awacs radar and supporting planes, and reconnaissance and electronic-warfare units. The Navy would provide three aircraft carriers, a surface group probably centered on a battleship, five maritime aerial patrol squadrons, and ships from the Middle East Force. General Kingston, who once commanded the Special Forces, or Green Berets, would use some of those soldiers, plus Army Rangers, Air Force special-operations units and Navy Seals to infiltrate behind enemy lines. Sustaining a formidable force near the Persian Gulf with a steady flow of reinforcements, fuel, ammunition and supplies would be even more difficult than getting it there. Maj. Gen. Wil- liam E. Klein, a staff officer with the Joint Chiefs, told Congress re- cently that "the size of the force we could send to Southwest Asia is limited by our capability to support it." "Probably the most pressing need we have is for more lift - airlift and sealift," General Kingston says. "Seven thou- sand miles one way is a long commute." It takes a CS Galaxy 14 hours to fly from the East Coast to Oman at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Cargo ships carrying the bulk of the heavy equipment would take 31 dayrs, if the Suez Canal were closed and they had to sail the 12,000 miles around the Cape of Good Hope. Once troops and supplies ar- rived, mobility would be hard to achieve. The entire region, General Kingston points out, "has just two-thirds of the paved-road mileage found in the state of Florida." D As a substitute for bases under United States control, American diplomats have pio- neered a new concept for the Central Command, persuading several nations in the region to give American forces access to their military installations, in most cases, the United States pays for expanding and im- proving those bases. After long negotiations, the United States has gained ac- cess to the Sidi Sliman Air Base in Morocco as a way sta- tion. The Administration has obtained a Congressional ap- propriation of S2 million for this fiscal year to improve that base, and has asked for $3 mil- lion for the fiscal year that be- gins on Oct. 1. American forces have sev- eral times used the Egyptian military airport at Cairo West for maneuvers. But getting an agreement to build a large base at Ras Banas, on the shore of the Red Sea, has run into snags. American and Egyptian negotiators have agreed that Egypt will put up $49 million for construction j and the United States another $49 million, but for a project less ambitious than originally planned. In Oman, Sultan Qabus bin Said has opened airfields at Seeb and Thumrait to Amer. ican forces, and has agreed to allow the United States to stockpile war materiel there. He has also permitted the United States to use the island of Masira as a transfer point for supplies flown In by large planes, then taken by boat or smaller planes to ships at sea. The Administration got $60.4 million in 1983 for construction in Oman and another $28.6 mil- lion for this year, and has asked for $42 million for next year. Included wotfld be hard- ened shelters for fighter planes at Seeb and temporary accom- modations for American per- sonnel at Thumrait. Programs for improving bases in Kenya and Somalia have been completed, at least for now. The United States spent $57.9 million between 1981 and 1983 in Kenya, largely on port facilities. Another $54.4 million was spent in Somalia during the same period, largely to refurbish the air and naval base at Berbera built by the Soviet Union before Soma- lia broke off military relations with Moscow in 1977. The British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is vital to the Central Com- mand's logistic, naval and air support. Of the 18 cargo ships that would immediately supply American forces deployed to the Persian Gulf, 15 are based at Diego Garcia. To escape ob- servation by Soviet spy satel. lites, each vessel occasionally slips into the shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean, where it be- comes indistinguishable from the 5,000 ships plying those routes. Another ship is based at Subic Bay in the Philippines, yet another is stationed at Guam, and a third cruises around the Mediterranean, loaded with Air Force ammu- nition. Over the last four years, the United States has enlarged the airfield at Diego Garcia to ac- commodate B-52 bombers. Warehouses, repair shops and communications facilities have been built. Submarine tenders call to service under- sea boats. The United States spent $57.9 million to improve the naval and air bases in 1983, and it is spending another $90 million this year. The request for fiscal 1985 is down to $22.9 million, as the program nears completion. Saudi Arabia has so far held the Central Command at arm's length, offering no access to oases and witholding permis- sion for American forces to maneuver there. But the Saudi Government has been building a complex of bases far beyond its needs or its ability to oper- ate. American planners be- lieve those bases would be made available in an emergen. cy. To compensate for the lack Continued Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402700011-0 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402700011-0 of treaties, General Kingston has begun to build a relation. ship with each nation in his command's operating region. Critical to that effort have been deployments of American forces for training with local troops. The most visible Central Command exercises have been three Bright Star maneuvers, most recently last summer, when 26,500 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines were deployed to Egypt, Sudan, Somalia and Oman and nearby waters. B-52 bombers flew from bases in the United States to make bombing runs, paratroopers jumped with Egyptian paratroopers, and Marine tanks churned ashore through heavy surf into Soma- lia. For the first time, the de- ployment included a combined Egyptian-Sudanese-American maneuver. A less-publicized exercise has been Shadow Hawk, in which American air-defense soldiers train with Jordanians in Jordan. Marines have made amphibious landings in Kenya and Oman, communications teams have drilled in Oman, and Special Forces units have trained in the Sudan. The big exercise this year, called Gal- lant Eagle, has been scheduled for the deserts of California this summer, while another Bright Star deployment to Egypt and other nations is planned for 1985. General Kingston empha- sizes personal relations. Last year, he spent five days in Jor- dan, where he met with King Hussein, and another five days touring military bases in Saudi Arabia. He also visited Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Yemen, Oman and Bahrain. The relationship between the Central Command and the countries of the region is fur- thered, General Kingston be. lieves, by the command's role as the agency for administer- ing American security assist. ance in the area. In 1983, the United States provided $7.7 bil- lion worth of assistance in mili- tary sales, government-fi- nanced arms shipments, mili- tary construction, training, grants, economic support for Lieut. Gen. Robert Kingston, head of the Central Command, at his headquarters in Florida. In Its first four years, the force has carried out 16 exercises, Including one last year In Egypt and become, In the general's words, "a credible deterrent." military programs, and com- mercial arms exports to 14 of the 19 nations in the Central Command's operating area, plus Morocco. That nation is outside the command's area but is crucial to its line of com- munications. The sum will go up to an estimated $9.1 billion this year and to a projected $11 billion in 1985. Right now, most of the com- mand's contingency plans focus on American troops. In the future, planners would like to work with their counter- parts in the region. Four years ago, officers in the Rapid 'Deployment Joint Task Force had to start almost from scratch to acquire data on the ethnic mixtures, reli- gious complexities and geogra. phy of a region of snow-capped mountains and deserts with 130-degree temperatures. Good maps have been hard to come by. Weather informa- tion, vital to military opera- tions despite technical ad- vances, was lacking. When American helicopters flew into Iran on their aborted mission to rescue the American Em- bassy hostages, pilots ran into huge dust storms, about which they had not been warned. For intelligence. the Central ? uiniand has no network of listening posts to intercept radio and telephone transmis- 4iorL. It lacy places to out sensors that can find, through r dar ~r infrared deteStion. movements of tanks, missiles and aircraft. The command lacks agents to gather infor.- mation that satellite S)hntn-e are unable to nick up - for .Q . stance, how many aircraft in- side a hangar are fit to fly. Similarly, the Central Com- j mand does not have the com- munications by radio, telex and telephone that are com- mon to other commands. The entire apparatus for communi- cating with units in the field and with Washington must be carried when the command de- ploys. When the Central Com- mand's forerunner, the Rapid Deployment Force, was formed in 1980, critics scoffed that it was not rapid, had little to deploy, and was not much of a force. The critics have been less vocal recently, as the Cen- tral Command has started to make progress. General Kingston touched on that in a recent address in London, say- ing: "Four years ago, if the President had directed us to send a military force to this area of the world to protect the vital interests of the United States, its friends and its allies, no one could have told you what forces would go, in what order, how long it would take them to get there, how they would be sustained or who their commander would be." "Today," he concluded, "I can answer all of those ques- tions." ^ Richard Halloran, a member of The Times's Washington bu- reau, covers military affairs. , Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402700011-0