No U.S. aircraft carriers in Asia

Sources have confirmed that because of a major shift in available
military resources to bolster NATO’s war effort in Yugoslavia, the
Pentagon has pulled the last available aircraft carrier out of Asia and
sent it to the Mediterranean.

WorldNetDaily first reported the phenomenon last week in an
exclusive story detailing possible future threats to U.S. hegemony in Asia by an
alliance of nations consisting primarily of Russia and China.

The redeployment of the USS Kitty Hawk, the last available aircraft
carrier in Asia, came after Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen issued
a number of defense directives
April 3.
The move, according to sources, was made to reinforce continuing
military operations in Iraq and Yugoslavia.

Among other directives, Cohen ordered the Kitty Hawk Battle Group,
based in Yokosuka, Japan — to deploy to the Persian Gulf to relieve the
USS Enterprise, ostensibly because the latter carrier is scheduled to
return to the United States in May for regularly scheduled maintenance.

A Defense Department spokesman who identified himself as LCDR
Sutherland confirmed that the USS Kitty Hawk has been ordered to take up
station in support of U.S. air operations over Iraq, but declined to say
when the carrier battle group would arrive.

“I don’t have an exact date,” Sutherland said, “but it will be there
shortly.”

He did not elaborate on contingency plans to supplement security
obligations in the region, and did not know when the Kitty Hawk would be
replaced with another carrier group.

According to a Defense Department briefing, however, Cohen has
ordered “one F-15E fighter squadron, a carrier battle group, B-52s and
EA-6Bs to remain poised in the United States, ready to deploy on short
notice (to an Asian theater) if necessary.” Also, Cohen has ordered that
two Air Force AC-130 gunships, presently deployed to Korea, will remain
on station to help bolster U.S. forces stationed in proximity to Japan,
Korea and Taiwan.

The redeployment of the last carrier in the Western Pacific, long an
area protected by U.S. forces, has some congressmen concerned that the
United States is spreading its forces much too thin to adequately meet
all the military’s obligations.

Gary Hoitsma, press spokesman for Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., told
WorldNetDaily, “This is one of our huge concerns about this whole
operation (Yugoslavia),” Hoitsma said. “It’s not just this incident, but
so many other things like it that are happening in this administration.”

Sue Hensley, an aide to Sen. Tim Hutchison, R-Ariz., echoed that
sentiment.

Hoitsma said Sen. Inhofe was most worried about overall dwindling of
military resources and the country’s ability to meet its obligations in
all commitments — those which are long standing and those recently made
by President Clinton.

Military force reduction, coupled with increased responsibilities,
“has been an area of our concern for the past six years,” he added.
Hoitsma commented that should trouble arise between China or North Korea
while Pacific theater forces are being reduced, “there would have to be
some real quick shifting of resources” from other, less pressing, areas
of the world where American forces reside. And neither he, nor a number
of other congressmen and senators, is convinced the United States has
the ability.

“You’ve got aircraft being taken out of the no-fly zone in Iraq being
moved from Turkey over to Italy, for example,” Hoitsma said. “You’ve
also got airlift stretched to capacity, the need to call up reserves,
and you’ve got pilots leaving the Navy and the Air Force in droves —
regardless of the current situation in Yugoslavia — because of other
concerns about deployments, lack of mission, and all the rest.” Hoitsma
said the Clinton administration’s prosecution of the war in Kosovo is
exacerbating the preexisting military shortages.

He said Inhofe worries about becoming so heavily involved in areas of
the world where the U.S. has no national interests — like Yugoslavia —
“while we leave our flanks exposed.”

He could not say whether the Japanese government had expressed
concern over losing the only U.S. carrier left in the region. But he did
say he had seen one report that said the 38,000 American troops based in
South Korea “might have to go to a higher alert status because of this
carrier having to be moved.”

Robert Trainor, an aide to Sen. Rick Santorum, R-PA, said Cohen,
along with
Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton, are scheduled
to testify April 15 before a senate committee looking into such force
shortages.

“The responses given by the defense secretary and the joint chiefs
chairman will determine the senator’s line of questioning,” Trainor told
WorldNetDaily.

He said the Senate hearing will address “the current situation in
Kosovo, but specifically our current readiness as well as troop and
equipment strengths (and needs) in Kosovo.”

Trainor said Santorum has raised an eyebrow over the Defense
Department’s decision to move the Kitty Hawk out of the Sea of Japan and
“obviously there is some concern about the current equipment shortage
and the fact that U.S. forces are spread too thin.”

“The Clinton administration has dispatched our forces all over the
world” at the worst possible time, he added.

Rodger Baker, an analyst and spokesman for Stratfor,
a global economic and intelligence forecasting
firm, told WorldNetDaily that he had heard talk, in passing, that other
analysts and congressional sources were concerned with losing the last
carrier in the Western Pacific “because this is the first time since
World War II that this has happened.” Stratfor notified Internet email
recipients in their April 12 Global Intelligence Update that the carrier
had indeed been reassigned.

“By not having a carrier group readily available,” Baker said, “it
does raise both suspicions and concerns.”

He said his firm has no indications that China, for example, is
moving to take advantage of the loss of the U.S. carrier to the region.
But he added, “The U.S. has been actively trying to keep tensions low in
the Asian region,” which left open the possibility that moving the Kitty
Hawk was a calculated move by the administration to appease Beijing.

“We don’t have any solid information on that, however,” Baker said.
“I don’t, however, see the U.S. giving up anything — Taiwan or South
Korea, for example — in exchange for a non-belligerent China.”