WASHINGTON, September 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The U.S. Central Command announced plans Wednesday, September 11, to move 600 staff and a deployable headquarters to Qatar for an exercise as the administration mulls a permanent move of the command to the tiny Gulf state.

A senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. national security leadership was considering moving the entire Tampa, Florida-based headquarters to Qatar.

The official said senior officials had first advocated moving the command to the region last fall as U.S. forces were launching a military assault on Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

At the time, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected such a move as too costly and time consuming, the official said.

But the disadvantages of directing the Afghan campaign from Florida arose repeatedly during the campaign, and now has resurfaced as the administration appears to be preparing for war with Iraq.

U.S. President George W. Bush is expected to make the administration’s case against Iraq in a speech Thursday to the United Nations, setting the stage for a showdown over Baghdad’s failure to disarm.

The Central Command, meanwhile, said it plans to deploy 600 headquarters staff to Qatar where U.S. air forces have the use of the sprawling al-Udeid air base, one of the biggest in the region.

“As part of the biannual exercise “Internal Look 03”, US Central Command will deploy a portion of its command staff to Qatar sometime in November,” said Lieutenant Commander Nick Balice, a spokesman for the command.

The command also will move and test a new deployable headquarters consisting of several modular buildings designed for command and control and communications activities, he said.

Although the command has held command post exercises every two years since 1990, this is the first involving a move of personnel and equipment to the Gulf.

Pentagon officials would not rule out the possibility that the headquarters and staff may be left in Qatar after the exercise is over.

“Nothing is definite,” said one official, who asked not to be identified. “A lot can happen between now and then.”

The Central Command headquarters staff at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida has grown to about 2,000 people since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

“A sizeable portion of the Central Command staff will remain here in McDill,” Balice said.

It was unclear whether Army General Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. forces in the region, would be taking part in the exercise.

“He travels frequently and its typical for him to travel to participate in exercises he’s conducting,” said Balice.

The Central Command is responsible for U.S. forces throughout southwest Asia, an area of with a quarter of world’s oil reserves and simmering tensions that span 25 countries from Egypt to Afghanistan. In between are Iran, Iraq and nuclear armed Pakistan.

The desert base of al-Udeid boasts a 14,000 ft. runway and enough ramp space and shelter to house an air expeditionary force of 30 to 40 fighter jets.

The region is already headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain. U.S. forces also are stationed in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Further east, Central Command forces support operations in Afghanistan from bases in Pakistan and Central Asia.

Threats of terrorist attacks prompted the command to put all U.S. forces in the region - some 60,000 of them afloat and ashore - on the highest state of alert, force protection condition Delta, Pentagon officials said.

Throughout the Afghan campaign, Franks has kept his headquarters in Tampa, believing he could lead as effectively from Florida as from the region.

But he recently designated a commander for U.S. forces in Afghanistan and moved army headquarters for the region to Kuwait.

During the 1991 Gulf War, General Norman Schwarzkopf commanded coalition forces from Saudi Arabia.

More than 5,000 U.S. troops are still based in Saudi Arabia, mostly at the Prince Sultan Air Base which boasts a state-of-the-art combined air operations center that was used to direct the air war over Afghanistan.

But U.S. relations with the Saudis have soured and Washington can no longer count on the use of Saudi territory for offensive military operations against Iraq.

Instead, it has sought to diversify its forces in the region, upgrading the al-Udeid base over the past year as an alternative to the Prince Sultan Base.

The desert base 35 kilometers (20 miles) south of Doha boasts a 14,000 foot runway and enough ramp space and shelter to house an air expeditionary force of 30 to 40 fighter jets.

Currently, it is used by U.S. tanker refueling planes and air transports.

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