Navy Abandons Turkey Option, Moves Ships to Red Sea

No decision has been made to move the carriers from the Mediterranean, but that could be the next step, the officials said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Each carrier has about 80 aircraft aboard.
Tomahawks are satellite-guided missiles normally used in the opening stages of war to strike high-value, fixed targets such as government buildings in areas where the risk of civilian casualties is relatively high.
The Tomahawks are 18 feet long and are designed to evade radar by skimming the land or sea surface. They carry 1,000-pound warheads. Following the Gulf War, they became one of the weapons of choice to respond to Iraqi breaches of U.N. sanctions.
The issue of overflight rights for U.S. missiles and planes has been overshadowed by the Bush administration’s struggle to win Turkey’s approval to base 60,000 or more U.S. troops there to open a northern front against Iraq.
The Turkish parliament rejected the U.S. request for basing rights earlier this month, and Pentagon officials said Thursday it appeared increasingly unlikely that the Army would position its 4th Infantry Division in Turkey, as originally planned.
About three dozen cargo ships with the 4th Infantry Division’s weaponry, equipment and supplies have been waiting off the Turkish coast for weeks, and the troops are still at their base in Fort Hood, Texas.
During the 1991 Gulf War the Navy positioned carriers and Tomahawk-launching ships in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. It now has three carriers in the Gulf — the USS Kitty Hawk, the USS Constellation and the USS Abraham Lincoln. Those carrier battle groups include about 20 Tomahawk-firing ships and submarines.