Port Hueneme Seabees Await Mideast Call

The Naval Construction Battalion Center at Port Hueneme is preparing for the possibility of sending troops to the Middle East to build facilities for U.S. forces deployed in the region, Navy officials said Wednesday.

“We are anticipating a contingency operation and preparing for it,” said Connie Taylor, spokeswoman for the Navy base at Port Hueneme. The Seabees are a uniformed force of civil engineers and construction tradesmen that can be deployed anywhere in the world to build emergency shelters and other facilities.

“It doesn’t take a genius to know we are going to need some construction guys to help out in Saudi Arabia,” said Capt. Mike Sherman, a Navy spokesman in Los Angeles.

President Bush has ordered a massive deployment of American troops to Saudi Arabia and other Mideast countries to pressure Iraq into withdrawing from Kuwait and to prevent it from invading other neighboring countries.

Saudi Arabian leaders have agreed to accept as many as 90,000 American troops into their vast desert kingdom, which U.S. officials fear will lack the facilities to accommodate such a large contingent of personnel and weaponry.

Port Hueneme, which became famous in World War II as the staging center for 20 million tons of construction supplies and the departure point for 200,000 troops, is one of two home ports in the United States for Seabee battalions. The other is in Gulfport, Miss.

But two of Port Hueneme’s four Seabee battalions, each with about 650 troops, are temporarily stationed overseas, far closer to the Persian Gulf than those units remaining here, Taylor said.

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3 is stationed temporarily in Spain and Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4 is in Puerto Rico.

But Taylor stressed that she is under orders not to elaborate on possible plans to deploy Seabees to the Persian Gulf region for reasons of “operational security.”

“I cannot discuss any ongoing or current events involving the Seabees,” Taylor said, referring all calls to the Pentagon.

Department of Defense officials declined to discuss the movements of any specific military units. “This is an ongoing operation, and for security reasons, we are not going to get specific for unit locations,” said Air Force Capt. Sam Grizzle, a Pentagon spokesman. “We will not confirm or deny the participation of any units.”

Because Port Hueneme has no airstrip, its battalions normally are airlifted from the Naval Air Station at nearby Point Mugu.

Lt. Cmdr. Gene Okamoto, chief spokesman for the Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, said he has not heard anything about transporting Seabees from the Naval Air Station on his base.

Okamoto said the Pacific Missile Test Center would not be sending troops to the Persian Gulf region because its mission is primarily to test or develop missiles, aircraft and electronic weaponry.

The Seabees also could be transported by the California Air National Guard, which moved from Van Nuys to Point Mugu in March. The Air National Guard’s 146 Tactical Airlift Wing stationed at Point Mugu has 16 C-130 transport planes. “At this time, we haven’t been given any orders to that effect,” said Lt. David Corrick, an Air National Guard spokesman.