Demonstrators march around the White House in Washington on October 26

WASHINGTON, October 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - If Washington orders an attack against Iraq, the Pentagon expects to mobilize about as many reservists as it did during the Gulf war in 1991, the New York Times reported Monday, October 28.

During the Gulf War some 265,000 members of the National Guard and Reserves were summoned to active duty, the daily reported.

Officials had long maintained that a future military engagement in Iraq likely would call for fewer troops than in the first Gulf War, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

But military experts now say that large numbers of Guard and Reserve troops would be needed to protect military bases overseas and at home - above and beyond forces assigned to combat roles, the Times reported.

The troops, especially those in the National Guard, would also be expected to play an important role in protecting an array of potential terrorist targets in the United States, including power plants, transportation hubs, medical centers and factories.

The Times said that during the war in 1991, the American government did not have such significant fears of terrorist strikes against overseas bases or targets in the United States. It added that this time, according to officials, the threat of terrorist attacks would become more critical, rising above even the elevated threat levels since Sept. 11.

“One expert familiar with the Pentagon’s planning said a significant difference between any new military offensive against Iraq and the earlier gulf war was “the need for greater force protection around the world” and a dramatically expanded role for the military in homeland security,” reported the paper.

According to the newspaper, a reserve call-up is just one important variable that military planners are weighing as they refine war strategy for a possible confrontation with Iraq.

The diplomatic dance going on in New York over details of a United Nations Security Council resolution governing the course of international weapons inspections in Iraq has a direct impact on the timing of troop deployments and, ultimately, the start of any offensive.

Much of the heavy equipment recently deployed to the Persian Gulf region would probably remain while inspections were under way, because it is more difficult to move in bulk and with speed, according to Pentagon officials, the Times said.

In another development, Saudi army chief of staff Lieutenant-General Saleh al-Muhaya met in Riyadh Monday with the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, General Richard B. Myers, the official Saudi Press Agency said.

Myers, who arrived Sunday evening, was expected to hold talks with Saudi leaders on the regional situation.

The SPA gave no details of Myers’s talks, but they come against a backdrop of mounting U.S. pressure on the U.N. Security Council to take decisive action to disarm Iraq.

Saudi Arabia, which houses a major U.S. air base at Al-Kharj, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital, has expressed opposition to U.S. military action against Iraq.

U.S. media have reported contingency plans to move the base of U.S. Gulf operations to the neighboring emirate of Qatar in the face of the Saudi opposition.

Muhaya said in remarks published Monday that there “has been no change in the numbers or tasks of the U.S. forces present in the kingdom.”

He told Al-Jazira newspaper “the position of the U.S. troops has not changed for the last 10 years and its duties are limited to monitoring the no-fly zone over southern Iraq.”

There are some 5,000 U.S. troops, mostly air force, stationed in the Prince Sultan air base, who were allowed to use the resources and the communications and planning center at the base during the war on Afghanistan.

On Saturday, October 26, about 50,000 chanting anti-war protesters circled the White House to protest a possible U.S.-led attack on Iraq after a rally in which speakers denounced President George W. Bush as a war criminal.

Many in the crowd - estimated by organizers at 100,000 - beat on drums and carried signs such as “Drop Bush, not Bombs.” They chanted slogans reminiscent of the huge anti-Vietnam war protests of the 1960s and 1970s, such as “1-2-3-4, we don’t want your racist war.”

Similar protests took place in other U.S. cities and elsewhere around the world.

Organizers from the coalition of mostly leftist groups had expected the rally to be the largest since the Vietnam war era. Speakers, including veteran civil rights advocate Jesse Jackson, also compared the new protest movement to the massive nonviolent campaign led by Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s to end discrimination against blacks.

“We are killing a million and a half people through genocidal sanctions,” he said. “We are destroying international law, destroying the U.N., destroying the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.”

Bush insists Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has developed chemical and biological arms in violation of UN resolutions he agreed to as part of the price for the ceasefire ending the 1991 Gulf War and is seeking nuclear weapons as well. Iraq denies the charges.

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