The Army Field Support Battalion-Kuwait, 402nd Army Field Support Brigade, began the issue here of brigade combat team equipment to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division's Ironhorse Brigade, Jan. 3.
When the equipment draw is completed in mid-February, the unit will be properly equipped to conduct security cooperation, training and joint exercises with Kuwaiti forces, said officials. ...
The draw is taking place in four phases that repeat for each unit of the brigade.
We keep equipment in Kuwait to equip a heavy combat brigade and this equipment is being used. This is a slow issue that will be done over weeks per battalion rather than a rapid one that can be done in ten days.
But doing it slowly minimizes the optics of an American deployment. But by spring we'll have a full heavy brigade in the field ready for training. So by the summer or fall it will be ready to come home--or be trained and ready for use if need be.
I wrongly thought we were keeping a brigade withdrawn from Iraq at the end of last year in Kuwait for a while unrelated to our stored equipment. But the unit scheduled to remain in Iraq is drawing the stored equipment rather than using what they marched out of Iraq with.
On the other hand, the 1st CAV unit could be drawing the equipment and checking it out so that new troops could be flown in very rapidly to fall in on the already deployed equipment while the 1st CAV troops return to their own organic equipment. But I'm just speculating. If there is no crisis, the Ironhorse Brigade could just train on the equipment, return it to storage, and come home with nothing kinetic happening.
But it could make room for other troops. I assume we have a Marine MEU afloat in the theater as a reserve, and we could fly in a paratrooper brigade fast, too. Plus we have other equipment in the Persian Gulf region. So we could quickly have a division-sized force in Kuwait able to defend Kuwait from Iran or block Iran if they try to move into southern Iraq.
Oh, and is this National Guard unit still going to Kuwait this year?
It doesn't hurt to be ready. When you wonder about what we get with our defense dollars, this is one of them. We "waste" money to move troops around the globe just in case--which deters others and saves money and lives in the long run. Or just makes it more likely to win if it comes to war when deterrence fails.
