They'll join a task force headed
Staff and wire reports
by the carrier Nimitz to quiet
Iranian attacks on targets in IraqWASHINGTON -- The United States, reacting to Iranian attacks on targets in Iraq this week, told the aircraft carrier Nimitz to skip a port call in Singapore and hurry to the Persian Gulf for a show of strength, officials said today. The Pentagon said the Nimitz, which usually carries about 50 F-14 and F/A-18 combat aircraft, would arrive in the region by the middle of the month, four or five days earlier than originally scheduled.
The carrier's battle group also includes three Pearl Harbor-based vessels and two helicopter squadrons from Barbers Point Naval Air Station.
The Navy said the Aegis guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal, with a crew of 400 sailors, and the nuclear submarines USS Bremerton and the USS Olympia are based in Pearl Harbor. The 73,000-ton Nimitz left Bremerton, Wash., Sept. 1.
Navy spokesmen declined to elaborate on the reasons for the early deployment, but the Pentagon's Col. Richard Bridges said it was reasonable to assume a connection with the Iranian raids on bases of the Mujahideen Khalq, the main Iranian opposition group.
One of the bases was inside the no-fly zone imposed by the United States and its allies since 1992 over southern Iraq.
The original aim of the ban was to protect Iraqi Shiites from the Iraqi air force. Washington has not previously taken a strong stand on Iranian attacks on the Mujahideen, who have few friends in the U.S. administration.
But Tuesday, Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the United States had told Iran it could shoot down its planes if they violate the ban on flights in the zone. White House spokesman Mike McCurry reinforced the warning today.
"We've made clear we will continue to vigorously enforce the no-fly zones established to ensure compliance with relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions," he said.
"We've got a very active presence in the region, and it is related to our ability to carry out our responsibilities given to us by the international community," he told reporters.
A White House official, explaining why McCurry issued the threat, said the United States did not want Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to use the Iranian action as a pretext.
"Saddam should not use incidents of Iranian action as an excuse to prevent the international community from enforcing the U.N. resolutions and the no-fly zone," he said.
"We have seen some instances where there have been some Iraqi flights, some Iranian flights, and the United States and the coalition will enforce the no-fly zone," he added.
Analyst Judith Kipper, Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said she thought it a case of the United States asserting a right to keep outsiders out of Iraqi airspace.
"We are in charge of security in the gulf. They (the Iranians) can't fly into American-controlled territory with impunity," she said.
Asked why the United States should send a carrier when it has so much air power in the gulf, she said, "You don't make a point by what's sitting there, by what's routine."
The United States and its allies already have combat aircraft at bases in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states to patrol the no-fly zone for any air activity by the Iraqis.
Since the Iranian raids Monday, the planes have stepped up flights, sources close to the force said Wednesday.
But a Saudi air force official denied reports circulating among oil traders that its forces in the oil-rich Eastern Province were on high alert.
Bridges said the Nimitz was on its way to the gulf anyway. It was in the South China Sea, traveling southwestward, national security sources said.
"The Nimitz was scheduled to go to the Persian Gulf, with a port call in Singapore. The port call was canceled, and it will arrive four or five days early," Bridges said.
"There has been activity in the Persian Gulf area," he added, referring to the Iranian air raids on Mujahideen bases. Asked if this was the reason, he said, "It's reasonable to assume that."
Bridges said the United States had no aircraft carrier in the gulf at the moment, and he did not know when the last carrier left. As usual, the Nimitz will travel at the head of a carrier task force of several ships.
