Navy carriers to leave Gulf

WASHINGTON -- Two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and the ships in their battle groups will leave the Persian Gulf this week and return to their home ports, a U.S. defense official said Monday.\nThe departure of the USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Constellation reflects a winding down of the air campaign, although the Pentagon is still sending more ground forces to Kuwait and Iraq.\nThe Army's 1st Armored Division is moving its equipment to ports for shipment to the Gulf region, and its troops will follow by air in a couple of weeks, a division spokesman, Maj. Scott Slaten, said Monday. The division is sending two armored brigades and one aviation brigade from bases in Germany, and one brigade is going from its base at Fort Riley, Kan., Slaten said.\nIt is not clear whether one of the Army divisions already in Iraq will leave once the 1st Armored gets there.\nAlso, soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division, recently arrived in Kuwait from Fort Hood, Texas, crossed the border into Iraq Monday. First to go were two convoys of about 500 tanks and other vehicles. It was not clear whether their destination was Baghdad or northern Iraq.\nThe Kitty Hawk will return to its base at Yokosuka, Japan, and the Constellation will return to San Diego, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.\nAs combat winds down in Iraq, the hunt for chemical and biological weapons or nuclear materials is rising on the priority list for American troops. There are more potential nuclear, biological or chemical weapons sites in Iraq than U.S. military teams to check them, Pentagon officials said Sunday.\nVice Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of all naval forces participating in the Iraqi war had said in an interview Saturday that he hoped the Kitty Hawk and Constellation could leave soon, although he said no orders had been received.\nThe Kitty Hawk is scheduled to leave first, around the middle of this week, followed shortly by the Constellation, the defense official said.\nThat will leave only one carrier in the Gulf -- the USS Nimitz, which just arrived to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln is headed back to its homeport of Everett, Wash.\nKeating said Saturday that either the USS Theodore Roosevelt or the USS Harry S. Truman battle groups may be sent home soon.\nOfficials said Monday it was not clear whether any decisions had been reached on those carriers.\nEach aircraft carrier has about 80 planes aboard, and their F/A-18 and F-14 strike aircraft played a major role in the air war. Surveillance and other support aircraft also fly off the carriers.\nThe first ship to leave the war zone was the USS Portland, part of an amphibious task force that carried 7,000 Marines to Kuwait in February. The Portland arrived at Little Creek, Va., on Friday.\nThe Air Force already has sent four B-2 stealth bombers back home to Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., officials said. They were flying missions over Iraq from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and from Fairford air base in Britain. Other B-2s flew roundtrip missions from Whiteman.\nAfter the Kitty Hawk deployed to the Gulf in February, its duties in the Pacific were taken up by the USS Carl Vinson, which remains in the Japan area and may stay even after the Kitty Hawk gets back if the carrier requires significant amounts of maintenance, officials said.\nU.S. ground forces have a list of 2,000 to 3,000 suspicious sites in Iraq that need to be checked, and weapons teams are checking up to 20 sites a day, said the war's commander, Gen. Tommy Franks. Iraqis ranging from common citizens to high-ranking officials have suggested other possible hiding places to be searched, Franks and other military officials said.\n"There are so many sites, we are not able to get to all of them right away," a senior Pentagon official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's fair to say there are a lot of places U.S. forces are adding to the list."\nCaptured Iraqi officials could help add to the list as well. Several top officials of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq are in coalition custody.\nThe Iraqis are being interrogated about the country's suspected weapons of mass destruction programs, U.S. officials said. They also are being pressed for details on where Saddam is, if he is alive, as well as the whereabouts of other former Iraqi leaders.\nThe captured Iraqis include Watban Ibrahim Hasan, one of Saddam's three half brothers, who once served as Iraq's interior minister. Hasan was the five of spades in the deck of playing cards the U.S. military issued with pictures of wanted Iraqi officials.\nFranks said Sunday the United States was holding several high-ranking Iraqi prisoners in western Iraq. Neither he nor Pentagon officials would say how many leading Iraqis have been captured.