DOHA, December 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed a new military pact with Qatar Wednesday, December 11, legalizing a huge U.S. presence at the Al-Udeid base, Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television reported.

The deal was signed with Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr Al-Thani shortly after Rumsefeld's arrival in Qatar to "watch" U.S.-British war games, the television reported. Qatar is also hosting a new forward command post that could direct an eventual war against Iraq.

The accord "legalizes the presence of the U.S. troops at the base," which is home to around 4,000 U.S. service personnel, Qatari foreign ministry official Khaled al-Mansouri told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Both Rumsfeld and Jassem, at a joint press conference, denied the new pact is related to the upcoming U.S. attack on Iraq, saying that the pact "builds on an existing defense agreement signed after the 1991 Gulf War."

"The new agreement does not mean that Qatar will participate in an attack against Iraq," Jassem said, adding that "this issue is not discussed yet".

When asked about the details of the new pact, Rumsfeld declined to answer saying he already talked about such details, although he didn’t, said Al-Jazeera correspondent.

But analysts told AFP said it would likely involve a new military convention linking Washington and Qatar, which is shaping up as a key ally in the threatening U.S. showdown with Iraq over its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Rumsfeld hailed "the wonderful cooperation between our countries in the war on terrorism" and praised Qatar as an "important and valued defense partner."

Rumsfeld said the new pact would result in quality of life improvements for the estimated 4,000 U.S. troops working at the Al-Udeid base here and upgrades at the facility.

For his part, Bin Jabr praised close ties between Washington and Qatar.

"The relationship between both countries is growing. This is part of a relationship that started more than a decade ago," he said.

The Al-Udeid base houses huge stockpiles of U.S. arms and equipment, and is the biggest U.S. warehouse facility in the Middle East.

Qatar's foreign minister said previously the countries were discussing permanent deployment of the mobile command post that was shipped to Qatar two months ago.

Rumsfeld was due to attend a major command exercise launched by Gulf commander General Tommy Franks and his senior battle staff on Monday, December 9, amid heightening "tensions" over Iraq.

About 1,000 U.S. and British staff went into a third day of war games at a desert base, running a high-tech mobile command headquarters through various computer-generated crises involving Iraq and other hotspots.

On Tuesday, December 10, the U.S. military's Central Command, which would run the U.S. war effort against Iraq, initiated a secretive computer-assisted war game from a high-tech movable headquarters it has recently set up in Qatar.

The exercise, dubbed "Internal Look," is intended to allow Central Command to test how well it can guide air, sea and land forces in a time of war.

It is a low-key affair - journalists are banned from the base where Gen. Tommy Franks and hundreds of other senior Central Command officials are engaged in the exercise - but it is a crystallizing moment for Qatar, one that demonstrates the country's growing dependence on the Americans, the U.S. daily, Christian Science Monitor, said Tuesday.

Commenting on Qatar's closeness with the U.S. at a time when the latter is preparing to make war against Iraq, the U.S. daily said that the relation between the two countries seems to be "a perfect match", as the small country steps forward to offer the Americans the use of the facilities they need.

In an article entitled "Qatar stands by U.S. as war looms", the paper said that "this relationship provides tiny Qatar with the biggest, most powerful friend there is. It provides the U.S. with well-situated military facilities.

For American policymakers and military planners, this is the stuff that dreams are made of," Christian Science Monitor said.

"This country - the mitten-shaped state of Qatar, a peninsula that pokes into the Persian Gulf from the east coast of the Arabian peninsula - has the world's third-largest reserves of natural gas, resources that are being exploited by American companies," it said.

The U.S.-Qatari bond has been consummated without any apparent domestic discord. But behind the marriage-of-convenience bonhomie, some Qataris question the need for an extensive American military presence and caution that the emir's reforms are superficial, the paper said.

However, the paper highlighted some of the behind-the-scene troubles in the U.S.-Qatar "friendship", saying that although it is not played out on television or in newspapers, the ties with the U.S. are a matter of debate in Qatar.

To some Qataris, the relationship is logical, even inevitable. Surrounded by bigger states - Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia - it makes sense to welcome the Americans. "I don't see any other way to do it," says Hassan al-Ansari, a historian at the University of Qatar.

"We don't need this," counters another Qatari, resplendent in his white headdress and floor-length white tunic. Interviewed in an equally white and resplendent mall in Doha, the capital, the man adds: "We can solve our problems by ourselves."

The Qatari interviewed at the mall - not 10 yards from a bustling Starbucks - says no public debate is possible on the American military role. "We don't have that kind of freedom," he says.