GIs to Saudi Arabia : AF Fighters, 4,000 Men From 82nd Airborne on Way : Imminent Threat From Iraq Cited

President Bush today ordered several thousand U.S. troops and a number of American jets to Saudi Arabia to counter a threat from Iraqi troops occupying neighboring Kuwait, U.S. defense officials said.

The officials, who asked not to be identified, said a brigade of up to 4,000 paratroopers will be flown from East Coast bases.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney obtained permission for the move from Saudi officials in talks there Monday.

Both the White House and the Pentagon refused to confirm or deny the report. But White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Iraqi troops in Kuwait posed an “imminent threat” to Saudi Arabia.

The defense officials, confirming an earlier report by CBS news, told Reuters that the troops from the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, N.C., would not be strong enough in number to fight at least 100,000 Iraqi troops if they attacked Saudi Arabia but would help provide security at Saudi airfields where U.S. warplanes will be based.

The airborne troops were expected to be flown to Saudi Arabia directly in big C-5A transports which would be refueled in flight.

The troops and planes were to take off “within hours” for the strategic kingdom in the Persian Gulf, CBS television reported this afternoon.

“(The Iraqis) are in an offensive posture. We believe there is an imminent threat to Saudi Arabia from the way they are positioned and located,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said when asked for an evaluation of the Iraqi presence in Kuwait.

The CBS correspondent at the Pentagon said the warplanes would include F-15 and F-16 fighters. The number of combat aircraft involved was not immediately known.

The correspondent, David Martin, said another key factor in the decision to send the troops and planes was Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s refusal to pull out of Kuwait, which his forces invaded last Thursday.

The network reported that the U.S. forces would arrive in Saudi Arabia early Wednesday and that their job would be to guard bases in the kingdom where the warplanes would land, not to wage a ground war.

Orders to evacuate Americans from eastern Saudi Arabia, where the warplanes are destined, were expected “soon,” the network report said.

There was speculation as to the effect of the deployment on the safety of Americans trapped in Kuwait--said to number 3,800--and a group of 39 known to be held in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Meanwhile today, the pressure on an increasingly isolated Iraqi President Hussein intensified as Turkey barred tankers from loading oil from a pipeline that carries Iraqi oil through Turkish territory to the Mediterranean.

The decision effectively stopped operation of the pipeline, adding to the potentially crippling effects of a worldwide trade embargo ordered against Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait. Sanctions forced Iraq to stop using a second Turkish pipeline on Monday.