AMID new charges concerning the recent US missile strikes on Iraq, some 3,500 US troops departed yesterday from Fort Hood, Texas for Kuwait. There they will crew Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles in the US military build up against Iraq, a military spokesman said in Washington.
A chartered aircraft took off from Fort Hood at 4 p.m. (Irish time) with 219 troops aboard. It was the first flight in a deployment expected to be completed by the weekend.
President Clinton ordered the deployment as part of his major US show of force in the Gulf to pressure Iraq into abandoning its air defences in the expanded no-fly zone.
Since attacking Iraqi air defence installations with cruise missiles earlier this month, the US has sent a second aircraft carrier, F-117 Stealth fighter bombers, F-16 fighters and Patriot missile crews to the region.
Yesterday a UN commander said the US missile attacks on Iraq, as well as overflights yesterday by unidentified aircraft, had violated an Iraq Kuwait demilitarised zone set up after the Gulf War.
Maj Gen Gian Santillo the Force Commander of the UN Iraq Kuwait Observer Mission (UNIKOM), said two warplanes seen yesterday circling over the border had broken the terms of the 15km wide UN mandated zone.
He added that UNIKOM observers had seen some of the 44 US cruise missiles fired at targets in southern Iraq on September 3rd and 4th fly over the zone. UNIOKOM sources said eight of the Tomahawks were sighted.
It was a violation. Maj Gen Santillo said adding that UNIKOM had reported both the overflights and the missiles to UN headquarters in New York.
In Turkey yesterday it was suggested that the leader of the Iraq backed Kurdish faction which took control of northern Iraq is ready to renounce Baghdad in return for Western support.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader, Mr Massud Barzani, arrived in Ankara for talks with the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Mr Robert Pelletreau, and with Turkish officials. An aide said Mr Barzani would ask "for American support and assistance for the Kurdish people".
He added. "If we get Western and US support, we won't need anyone else's support."
Mr Omer Akbel, a spokesman for the Turkish foreign ministry, said Mr Barzani was scheduled to meet the Foreign Minister, Ms Tansu Ciller, yesterday and the "involved" authorities.
The US State Department spokesman, Mr Nicholas Burns, said the US hopes to persuade Mr Barzani to break ties with Iraq and to convince his rival, the PUK leader, Mr Jalal Talabani, to do the same with Iran.