Military Buildup Continues

The president told the nation during an address before a joint session of Congress, ”I have called the armed forces to alert, and there is a reason.”

“The hour is coming when America will act, and you will make us proud.”

That statement came after Mr. Bush denounced Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders for allegedly allowing Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network to operate from inside their borders. The president told the Taliban they must hand over members of bin Laden’s extremist group and close terrorist training camps or face U.S. strikes.

The Air Force announced 5,131 members of the Air Force National Guard and Air Force Reserve have been called up for active duty. They come from 29 units in 24 states and the District of Columbia.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he expects as many as 35,500 members of the National Guard and Reserve to be called up.

U.S. officials today confirmed a New York Times report that Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Wald, the head of American air forces assigned to the Middle East and southwest Asia, was sent to the Persian Gulf region early in the week.

They did not comment on the Times‘ report that he had been sent to coordinate an air war from an operations center at Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The USS Kitty Hawk, the only U.S. aircraft carrier stationed in the western Pacific, left its port in Yokosuka for an undisclosed location, the Associated Press reports. The carrier has a crew of 5,500 sailors, naval aviators and Marines and usually carries 70 aircraft.

With two aircraft carriers already stationed in the region, the Navy will have more than 225 warplanes on hand for a military strike.

About 2,100 Marines are already stationed in the Gulf, with a similar sized unit heading in that direction.

Army Secretary Thomas White told the AP the Army is participating in the deployment and is prepared to conduct “sustained land combat operations.”

The elite Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina confirmed to Reuters its troops, who could conduct attacks on guerrilla bases in Afghanistan and elsewhere, were ordered to deploy. They gave no further details.

While the Penatgon is offering few details of the mobilization, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld elaborated on the differences between the conflict ahead and military actions of the past.

“What we’re engaged in is something that is very, very different from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Kosovo, Bosnia, the kinds of things people think of when they use the word ‘war,’ or ‘campaign,’ or ‘conflict,'” he said.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert today told NBC Americans should expect ground troops to be deployed before the U.S. response is over.

“We’re going to have people on the ground somewhere, sometime and we’re going to have to face these people — go into the shadows where they live and work and take them out,” he said.