Computers in front line of hi-tech war

Japanese car sales franchises and office supply stores line the main road out of Qatar's capital, giving no hint that nearby more then 2,500 Americans, 350 Brits and scores of Australian military planners and communications experts are working to orchestrate the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

Not surprisingly, security at Camp As Sayliyah is tight, with huge concrete road blocks positioned to thwart suicide truck bombers and heavily armed US army military policemen patrolling the perimeter in HUMVEE jeeps. Visitors are given full-body X-rays from a small army of Filipino security guards under contract from the US company Dyn.

The base rose from the desert in June 1996 when the US army started to build a warehouse complex for pre-positioned tanks and other heavy kit. These have long since been moved out to equip troops mustering to attack Iraq and most of the 30 warehouses have been turned into office space for the thousands of military planners who began arriving last autumn. About 30 acres of office space has been created inside them. UK communications experts arrived last October to begin setting up the headquarters of Britain’s Middle East chief, Air Marshal Brian Burridge.

It will be from the Central Command forward headquarters in Qatar that General Tommy Franks, the US’s Middle East military commander, directs the offensive by 300,000 troops, 700 combat jets, 500 helicopters, 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles and more than 100 ships.

The nerve centre of the war is a hi-tech complex from where officers will "fight" the war from a bank of laptop computers linked to large plasma screens. Information from the front will flow into the headquarters over high-capacity satellite links to allow officers to monitor the progress of the war in real time via displays showing what officers call the "battlespace" in, above and around Iraq.

Each US tank, aircraft and ship is fitted with an electronic tracking device that can show its position on the displays, while J-STARS radar aircraft monitor tank movements over hundreds of square miles, giving commanders a bird’s-eye view of Iraqi deployments. If Gen Franks and his staff want to take a closer look inside Iraq, they can call up Predator unmanned drones to beam back live video imagery.

US officers stress that, even though they can monitor every move of the attacking US forces and Iraqi defences, it is not the job of Gen Franks’s staff to direct the action of individual tank battalions, fighter squadrons or ships. That is the job of the respective air, land and sea commanders at their own in hi-tech command posts in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.

"We provide overall direction and set the objectives for our subordinates", explained one planner.

For the thousands of headquarters staff, it can be a surreal experience, having so much information about what is happening in Iraq, yet being curiously detached in the antiseptic world of As Sayliyah. "The steak in the cook house is pretty good," said one UK officer. "But when you hear from friends in Kuwait as they gear up to go to war, you want to be with them, rather than stuck here."

Only a small portion of the thousands of personnel at As Sayliyah have access to the highly secret command post buildings with their real-time communication links to the battlefront. The remainder guard the base, keep communications links running, order supplies and hire contractors to deliver the huge quantities of food, fuel and other material needed to sustain the troops throughout the Middle East.

Gen Franks was here at the end of last month to put the finishing touches to his battle plans and has since been locked in meetings in Washington to win the final approval of the Pentagon and the White House. Troops have been awaiting his return to Qatar which would be viewed as a sign that war was imminent.

But US officers stress that Central Command’s main headquarters in Tampa, Florida, has a command post building that mirrors the one in Qatar, so he could run the war from the US if necessary. This might also be a way to keep the Iraqis guessing about the date of the US attack.

"When the general is in Tampa, he has access to exactly the same information as he does here", said one US officer. "If the general is in Florida, they take the lead, and if he is here, we run things. We can also pipe huge amounts of data into the general’s aircraft so he can monitor the battle if he has to fly here from Florida."

Other US officers say that, even with the latest e-mail and video conferencing technology, Gen Franks wants to run the war from As Sayliyah so he can visit his subordinate commanders and local leaders in the Middle East. "The technology is great but sometimes you need to look someone in the eye and get the measure of them," said one source.

Maintaining the cohesion of the "coalition of the willing" for the attack on Iraq will be an important job for Gen Franks, but Air Marshall Burridge will also be a key figure in this coalition-building effort as the holder of what is referred to as "London’s red card".

Although the 45,000 British troops committed to Operation Telic will be under the tactical command of the US air, land and sea commanders, the air marshall will have the job of ensuring that they carry out only missions that have been approved by Downing Street.