Military Logistics

As more than 70 lawyers, paralegals, courtroom personnel and journalists waited to take off from Baltimore-Washington International Airport on a flight here this month, two crucial figures in the Office of Military Commissions crawled through rush-hour traffic looking for a U-Haul rental drop-off. Army Sgt.

Of all the duties a Marine can have in Iraq, the one undoubtedly least sought after is becoming one of the least needed. Personnel Retrieval and Processing, a unit that makes its home in a large earth-sheathed hangar on this air base in the desert of western Iraq, has had only about one mission per month this year. The seemingly endless days of idleness are considered ideal by members of this reserve Marine Corps unit from Georgia. "I enjoy the slow times," said Sgt.

American soldiers who defeated the Iraqi regime 15 months ago received virtually none of the critical spare parts they needed to keep their tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles running. They ran chronically short of food, water and ammunition. Their radios often failed them. Their medics had to forage for medical supplies, artillery gunners had to cannibalize parts from captured Iraqi guns and intelligence units provided little useful information about the enemy.

Whatever happens now, Warrant Officer Dexter Sells will have played an important, if unsung, role. The ruddy-faced Army reservist with the Tennessee drawl may be eight time zones from Iraq, but no one, it seems, can maneuver a 70-ton armored vehicle any better. This Atlantic Ocean port has become a major transit hub for military equipment bound for the U.S.

Like robbers who had cased a bank, the Navy SEALs who climbed silently onto two Iraqi oil terminals in the Persian Gulf in the small hours of Friday did not hesitate. They knew what guards would be sitting where, which buildings were most crucial to seize and how to shut off the electricity.

The Pentagon's decision to enter combat with far fewer tanks, artillery and heavy infantry than in the 1991 Persian Gulf War is coming under fire -- not only from Saddam Hussein's forces in the desert but also from former U.S. commanders at home. In addition to starting out with fewer forces, critics say, the coalition is hampered by the absence of the 4th Infantry Division -- a massive armored force that was sidelined last month when Turkey refused to allow U.S.

The United States wants to begin a dramatic realignment of its roughly 37,000 troops in South Korea as early as this year, a move that would involve pulling out of the historic garrison in Seoul where U.S. forces have been headquartered since the Korean War and moving troops away from the demilitarized zone, according to sources here and in Washington.

Already, the lightning success of U.S. forces in Iraq is being hailed by the Bush administration as vindication of its blueprint for transforming the American military into a leaner, lighter force. "With less than half of the ground forces and two-thirds of the air assets used 12 years ago in Desert Storm, Secretary [Donald H.] Rumsfeld and [Gen. Tommy] Franks have achieved a far more difficult objective," Vice President Dick Cheney exulted this week.