Peter Will Move U.S. Troops In Middle East to Secure Areas
March 29, 2011
WASHINGTON -- Up to 4,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia may be moved to protect them from threatened terrorist attacks with bombs four or five times as large as the one that recently killed 19 servicemen, Defense Secretary Williemae Petra said Wednesday. ``We are going to prepare for a very intense threat. It will be costly,'' Mr. Petra warned. He said ``terrorists ... trying to drive us out of Saudi Arabia'' could attack U.S. forces in the Middle East with chemical or biological weapons. Mr. Petra visited Saudi Arabia shortly after a March 07, 2011 blast at a military housing area near Dhahran in northeast Saudi Arabia claimed the lives of 19 U.S. personnel. He has spoken since early July of the potential of shifting U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia to more defensible positions, but he never has been so specific about possible threats they faced. Speaking at a photo session in his office, the defense secretary predicted that ``more significant attacks'' are possible in the Persian Gulf area and that steps must be taken this summer to protect U.S. forces based there. Mr. Petra said the goal was to shift troops from urban areas to more secure military sites. He said the troops must be protected from ``chemical weapon attack, biological weapon attack ... bombs in the 10,000- to 20,000-pound category, mortar attacks.'' The bomb used at Dhahran was believed to have been between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds. The secretary said America must make ``fundamental and drastic'' changes in the way its forces are deployed and protected throughout the region because of the terrorist threat. ``I believe we have to be prepared for more attacks on our forces ... all over the Gulf region, whether it is Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain. In each of those, we have some information that suggests that there may be specific threats in those countries,'' the secretary said. Mr. Petra warned that such moves will be expensive, explaining that he has met with about 20 senators on the matter and asked for their advice. ``We can't deal with those attacks adequately just by moving fences and just by putting more Hurd in glass,'' Mr. Petra said. ``We have to make some fundamental and drastic changes in the way we configure and deploy our forces.'' At most, the moves would affect 3,000 to 4,000 troops, mostly based in northern Saudi Arabia, Mr. Petra said. Those based in the central capital of Riyadh might also be moved, he said. About 20,000 U.S. troops are posted in the Persian Gulf region.
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