Iraq: Major combat over

2003-04-14 23:57

Washington - Major combat in Iraq is over now and US commanders are starting to send home aircraft carriers and stealth bombers and fighters, while they review their requirements for ground forces, senior Pentagon officials said on Monday.

"I would anticipate that the major combat engagements are over because the major Iraqi units on the ground cease to show coherence," said Army Major General Stanley McChrystal, vice-director of operations of the Joint Staff.

Tikrit, the hometown of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, was the last place where US forces thought they might find sizeable units of his Special Republican Guard forces, he said. But it fell on Monday with only sporadic resistance.

"We will move into a phase where it will be small, albeit sharp fights," said the general.

Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon spokesperson, told reporters not to expect a declaration of victory.

"I think you're going to see us talking for a long time about work that needs to be done, and we'll let others describe it," she said.

But a withdrawal of the massive US force deployed for what turned out to be a three-week-war already is in the works, officials said.

Aircraft carriers heading home

Two US aircraft carriers - the USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Constellation - are due to head home from the Gulf as early as this week. This is the first significant reduction of forces in the region, US defence officials said.

That will leave a single carrier in the Gulf, the USS Nimitz, which last week replaced the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

Two other carriers remain in the eastern Mediterranean - the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Harry Truman. But plans are being made to send one of those home soon, too, Vice Admiral Timothy Keating, the US naval commander, told reporters on Saturday.

"Redeployment has already begun from B-2s, F-117s and some F-15C fighters," a defence official said.

F-117 stealth fighters, which opened the war March 20 with a strike aimed at killing Saddam, were due back at their base in New Mexico this week.

"Senior leaders are releasing forces from the area as the missions are completed," said Brigadier General Jim Hunt, the commander of the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

General Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in Iraq, is free to send back forces he no longer needs - "and he is doing that," said McChrystal.

"Clearly those assets that are focused on a high intensity air campaign would be the most likely initially," he said.

No ground units deployed so far

"We're still early in the ground forces," he said, adding that no ground units have been re-deployed so far.

The US Army's 4th Infantry Division is now almost entirely deployed inside Iraq, and other ground forces continued to flow into the region, he said.

But force requirements are under review and more military police, engineering and civil affairs units will be flowing into the country, he said.

"There will be a requirement for combat power for some period of time to maintain or to establish that secure and safe environment," McChrystal said.

"But clearly the requirement for civil affairs, for engineer organisations, military police will be significant. In fact, that's designed into the force flow," he said.

The Kitty Hawk, which arrived in the Gulf in February as part of a massive US military build-up against Iraq, will head back to its homeport in Yokosuka, Japan, the defence official said.

A cruiser, a destroyer and two support ships will go with the carrier, the official said.

The Constellation, which deployed in November as part of a scheduled rotation in the Gulf, will be going back to its homeport in San Diego, California. It has about a dozen warships in its battle groups.

- AFX