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©Associated Press
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 2, 2001
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's war on terrorism gained a fourth aircraft carrier Monday -- but the USS Kitty Hawk isn't bringing along its full fleet of planes.
The Kitty Hawk will serve as a floating base for other forces, defense officials said.
In keeping with the administration's policy of not discussing details of military activities related to the antiterror campaign, the Navy would not comment except to say the Kitty Hawk does not have its usual number of aircraft aboard.
Two defense officials told the Associated Press that the Kitty Hawk was headed from its homeport in Japan toward the Arabian Sea to be available for use by U.S. special operations forces or by Navy aircraft other than its own.
Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Gordon, a spokesman at Pacific Fleet headquarters in Hawaii, said the Kitty Hawk left a portion of its 75-plane air wing behind at Atsugi Air Base in Japan when it departed Monday.
A carrier's fighter and surveillance aircraft are used not only for combat but also to protect the carrier against hostile aircraft.
The Kitty Hawk is the only one of the Navy's 12 carriers to be stationed permanently abroad.
Other than Afghanistan, U.S. officials have refused to discuss which nations might be military targets. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the first phase of retaliation will be aimed at Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network. In an interview on CBS Evening News, Powell would not rule out a strike against Iraq.
Bush "has ruled nothing out with respect to second, third or fourth phases of our campaign militarily," Powell told CBS. "What we really have to do is shut down terrorism, not just find a single place to take revenge out on, or a group of people to take revenge out on."
If the Kitty Hawk were used primarily as a launch platform for other kinds of U.S. forces, it would be unusual but not unprecedented. When U.S. forces assembled in the Caribbean Sea for a planned invasion of Haiti in the early 1990s, one aircraft carrier had soldiers from the Army's 10th Mountain Division on board instead of its full air wing. Another carrier had special operations forces aboard.
Two aircraft carrier battle groups -- the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Enterprise -- already are in the Arabian Sea or Persian Gulf, and a third -- the USS Theodore Roosevelt -- is headed there via the Mediterranean Sea.
The Pentagon announced Monday that it had called to active duty another 3,427 members of the National Guard and Reserves, bringing the total number of part-time soldiers, sailors and airmen activated to more than 20,000.
Monday's mobilizations included 522 members of the 919th Special Operations Wing, an Air Force Reserve unit based at Duke Field. The unit operates the MC-130E Combat Talon, a warplane designed to ferry special forces in and out of enemy territory.
WASHINGTON -- America's military must make defense of U.S. territory its primary mission and sharpen its ability to counter surprise attacks, a Pentagon study says.
Every four years the military publishes a study of strategy and force structure known as the Quadrennial Defense Review. The latest QDR had been expected to call for sweeping changes in the size and scope of the nation's military forces and weaponry in line with early Bush administration pledges to reshape the armed forces.
However, in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks, the report avoids such major moves.
It does reflect post-Cold War adjustments, putting more warships in the Western Pacific and shifting Marine Corps equipment from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf areas. It foresees a newly fashioned Army brigade in Europe by 2007 and enhanced ground forces in the Persian Gulf.
"It clearly sets forth the Bush doctrine to meet a rapidly changing world and threats, some of which we never could have envisioned would happen," said Sen. John Warner, R-Va. He commended Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "for his emphasis on homeland defense."
The report echoes Rumsfeld's concept of a more agile military as it seeks to deter terrorism and surprise attacks on the United States. And it predicts America's opponents will continue to use the most unusual tactics, as suicide hijackers did in the airliner strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The report says the United States is a global power with "important geopolitical interests" everywhere. But, as expected, the report drops the Cold War requirement that the military be able to conduct two major wars at the same time, such as in the Persian Gulf and on the Korean Peninsula.
While improving the defense of U.S. territory might require changes in force organization, the report said, the country must maintain the current structure of about 1.4-million men and women on active duty and 1.3-million in reserve.
The study refers to the current force of 12 Navy aircraft carriers, 10 active Army divisions, 46 active Air Force fighter squadrons and three Marine Corps expeditionary forces as the baseline for the nation's major fighting forces. This summer, Rumsfeld was said to be looking at reducing those numbers.
The report says America's defense strategy should "embrace uncertainty and contend with surprise, a strategy premised on the idea that to be effective abroad, America must be safe at home."
Asked at a Pentagon briefing why a new focus on homeland defense was necessary, Defense Department spokesman Adm. Craig Quigley said, "Since the fall of the Soviet Union, there's been presumed to be no real threat to the homeland of the United States."
That changed Sept. 11, Quigley noted.