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US Orders Combat Aircraft to Persian Gulf Area
The US Pentagon Wednesday ordered fighters and bombers to begin moving to the Persian Gulf area, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said.
The was the first concrete sign of preparations to retaliate for last week's terrorist attacks.
"There are movements and we will see more movements," Wolfowitz said. "I hope everyone understands, including the American people understands, why we do not want to reveal the details of those movements."
The combat aircraft will be preceded by teams of Air Force airlift control teams to coordinate the refueling of the fighters and bombers as they deploy from the United States to the Gulf, Wolfowitz said.
The deployment has been dubbed "Operation Infinite Justice," he said.
On Wednesday, the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and the ships in its battle group left their home port at Norfolk, Virginia, beginning a scheduled six-month deployment to the Mediterranean.
The U.S. Navy already has one carrier battle group in the Gulf and another in the Arabian Sea to the south.
Earlier Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that America's war on terrorism must go beyond Osama bin Laden and hunt down associated networks of terrorists in dozens of countries.
"We have a lot of evidence about a number of countries harboring terrorists that are working across the globe," Rumsfeld told CNN.
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