Nimitz to replace Ike in Gulf

From Navy Times

Nimitz set to replace Ike in Persian Gulf area

By Barbara Surk - The Associated Press

Posted : Sunday May 6, 2007 15:42:51 EDT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The Navy said Sunday it was replacing an aircraft carrier now departing the Middle East as part of the Bush administration’s stepped up military presence in the Persian Gulf area.

The aircraft carrier Nimitz and the accompanying ships of its strike group were expected in Mideast waters within two days, replacing the departing carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, said Navy Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl of the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet.

The San Diego, California-based Nimitz will join the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, now on patrol in the waters of the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.

Both carriers, with about 80 aircraft apiece, are backing military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as assisting with U.S. boardings of civilian vessels in search of smugglers.

The February arrival of the Bremerton, Washington-based Stennis was the first time since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that America operated two aircraft carriers in the Gulf region.

Aandahl said most carrier deployments in the Gulf last six to eight months, meaning the U.S. will keep two carriers in the region at least through the summer.

Many see the increased military build up as way to impress on Iran that the four-year slog in Iraq has not made America vulnerable.

“It’s to tell Iran, we’ll continue to monitor you,” said Adullah al-Shayji, a security expert at Kuwait University.

Arab governments have signaled their unease with the aggressive U.S. presence in the Gulf, fearing any U.S. attack on Iran would bring reprisals on their soil, home to several American bases.

But Gulf leaders also remain deeply worried about Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran says is aimed at bolstering its electricity supply, but that Washington suspects is cover for weapons development.

In March, the Stennis and Eisenhower took part in a U.S. demonstration of force off Iran’s Gulf coast just four days after Tehran captured 15 British sailors and marines whom it accused of straying into Iranian waters.

The United States maintains nearly 40,000 troops in Gulf countries other than Iraq, including about 25,000 in Kuwait, 6,500 in Qatar, 3,000 in Bahrain, 1,300 in United Arab Emirates and a few hundred in Oman and Saudi Arabia, according to figures from the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.

Al-Shayji also said the energy-rich Gulf Arab countries were still too weak to provide for their own security and rely on the United States to counter traditional rivals in Iraq and Iran.

“That’s why we continue outsourcing security to the U.S. and other foreign powers,” al-Shayji said.

Each of the carrier strike groups carries more than 5,000 sailors and Marines along with an air wing of F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft, S-3 Viking anti-submarine and refueling craft, and E-2C Hawkeye airborne command-and-control planes.