...according to Fox News.

And all but two B-2s are gone from Whitman, probably in Diego Garcia.

From DEBKAFile: Again, if just half of this is true...

To date, American and allied Turkish special forces have gained control of some 15 percent of Iraqi soil – mostly in the north. They are poised at a point 10-15 miles from Iraq’s two northern oil cities of Mosul andKirkuk, together with pro-American Kurdish and Turkman paramilitary groups, with no Iraqi force in the way of their advance, if ordered to occupy the two towns.



The massive US-UK air raid last Friday, September 6, by 100 fighter-bombers, reconnaissance and air tanker craft against the Iraqi air base cluster known as H-3 and the al Baghdadi air installation was Strike Number Two against the first line of Iraqi air and air defense command structures, the tactical prelude to any US offensive. It was also the first blow to systems for deliveringIraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Strike Number One was carried out on August 5, when American and British bombers and fighter craft demolished the Iraqi air command and control center at al-Nukhaib, in the desert between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, 260 miles southwest of Baghdad. This strike disposed of Iraq’s southern air defense line and left central Iraq including Baghdad vulnerable to US air, missile and ground attack from Saudi Arabia,Kuwait, Qatar,Oman and Bahrain.

Strike Number two last week completed the destruction of Iraq’s air defenses in the west, leaving the Saddam regime exposed to attack from the south, the southeast, the west and the north, as well as a US troop presence actually inside northern Iraq.

DEBKAfile ’s military sources sum up American tactical gains in Iraq thus far:

A. Hitting the H-3, site of the bulk of the ground-ground-missile batteries and air defense installations threatening Israeli, Jordan and US Eastern Mediterranean forces, as well as al Baghdadi, cleared the way for US special forces to be flown by helicopter across the border into Iraq from the West. Nothing now stops them from reaching as far as Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s tribal stronghold northwest of Baghdad, where the Iraqi ruler is believed to be hiding underground with his family and top officials. There too he has concentrated the bulk of the loyal units of the Iraqi army.

The first mission for the US units crossing in from Jordan will be, according to DEBKAfile’s military sources, to capture the bombed air installations and prepare them quickly for the use of US air force units and for more US and Jordanian special forces landings. H-3 is designated their jumping off base for the next stage of the campaign.

B. Since August 5, the way for an American advance into Iraq is also clear from the south.

Therefore, the general contours of the next US steps begin to take shape:

1. A combined US-Turkish force, backed by local groups, will complete the capture of northern Iraq and its oil cities.

2. The combined US-Jordanian force will advance on Baghdad and Tikrit.

3. The heavy military and armored units massed on the Kuwait-Iraq frontier will advance north in two heads – one forking off to the east and heading for Basra, while the other makes for the Shiite towns of Najef and Karbala on the Baghdad highway.

C. Our sources report that the air strike against H-3 and al Baghdadi destroyed some of Saddam’s ground-to-ground missiles, reducing the missile threat to Israel,Jordan and US East Mediterranean forces, though not eliminating it. Also destroyed were some of the Czech-manufactured LA-29 trainer planes sighted at al Baghdad in recent months, with aerosols fitted to their wings that are capable of spraying poison substances on the ground like anthrax. Some of the LA-29 have been adapted for kamikaze missions.

D. No less important politically,DEBKAfile’s military sources stress, is that some of the US assault craft took off from and returned to the Saudi Prince Sultan air base, 35 miles northeast of Riyadh, as well as from Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar.

As DEBKA-Net-Weekly reported in its last issues, the Bush administration is resolved to brush aside the public objections of Saudi leaders to the use of the kingdom’s bases against Iraq. American generals do not propose to heed the public declarations of rulers of lands where US bases are located, but to use them according to American military exigencies.



It's beginning to look a lot like the balloon is going up.

Check out the amazing space photos of the Qatar base here.