Sun, sand and army manoeuvres

British troops on an exercise in Oman

		By the BBC's Frank Gardner

Britain has assembled its biggest military force in the Middle East since the Gulf War over 10 years ago. Thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen have deployed to the Gulf state of Oman.

Officially, the troops are only there to take part in month-long joint exercises with the Omanis.

But Britain's Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, has said some of them could be used in joint military action with the Americans if required.

From the Omani port of Salalah on the Indian Ocean, I drove up through the mountains to visit the troops, at their base near the town of Thumrait.

Over 20,000 UK troops have been deployed

It's dusk in the desert and a soft, warm breeze is blowing across South Camp, ruffling the brown, camouflage nets that are draped over the tents.

This is the British Army's home from home in Oman, a tiny piece of garrison life temporarily transplanted to a remote corner of the Arabian Peninsular.

In the sweltering, makeshift kitchens, there's no time for dreamy reflection. It's dinner time, lines of hungry troops are forming outside the tent, and inside it's pandemonium.

There are cries of "get some of that on yer plate", "White wine sauce? You'd be lucky", "More roast potatoes!"

Army cooks dash across the dirt floor with huge trays of steaming food.

Feeding an army

Royal Marines from 45 Commando file in holding their mess-tins, their sweat-stained T-shirts covered in the fine powdery sand that coats everything here in the desert.

Corporal Kit Terry, a huge man with a cheeky grin, is a Marine cook serving up the food. I asked him how he and his mates were enjoying desert life.

"Very well, thank you very much" And what do you think of being out here? "It's quite nice actually, bit warm, bit dusty, but the morale's looking good", he says.

UK troops could be called on to aid any US military action

Catering for such a large force so far from home, is a Herculean task. Over 20,000 British troops are gathering here in Oman.

This is just a transit camp, a place for the soldiers to pass through, join up with their tanks and units, then move out into the desert. But someone has to work out how to feed them all, and balance the books.

That man is the master chef, Staff Sergeant Andy Smith. "We're struggling on manpower, with round about eight chefs and myself at the moment," he tells me.

"Breakfast-wise, breakfast being our busiest time - every squaddie likes his breakfast - we've done about 14-15,000 eggs over the last few days, and all on £4.26 a man per day!"

Desert dilemmas

Outside the cookhouse, it's already dark. Here on the southern edge of Arabia, the sun goes down in minutes. I wait for a convoy of jeeps to lurch across the track in front of me, then join Major Anita Newcourt.

A Territorial Army officer who normally works at Heathrow Airport, she's one of several hundred servicewomen who are out here with the British Army. We pull up a couple of camp chairs, open cans of warm 7-Up, and talk about her daily routine.

An RAF missile is launched into the desert on training

"We are all very hot, sweaty, and sandy. We get up very early because it's very hot by about 6 o'clock in the morning. We wipe the sweat and the flies off our brows, we work quite hard all day and by the time evening comes we're all checking underneath our beds and pillows to make sure that the scorpions and the camel spiders haven't crawled underneath", she says.

Outside the tent, the air is thick with the dust kicked up by hundreds of jeeps, tanks and trucks.

Sensitive time

The presence of so many British troops in the Gulf at this time is a sensitive issue. Almost the entire Arab world is opposed to Britain or America launching a military strike against any Muslim nation.

There is absolutely no connection between this exercise and any operations our American allies might be preparing

Brigadier Mike Smith

But Britain's Defence Attache in Oman, Brigadier Mike Smith, says that for now, this remains just an exercise.

"There is absolutely no connection between this exercise and any operations our American allies might be preparing. The exercise timing and American preparations are entirely coincidental.

Of course, in military planning terms almost anything is possible, but it would be very difficult and quite wrong for me to conjecture anything at the moment".

So, as Britain's camp in the Omani desert begins another day, nobody here seems to know for certain, whether this will remain 'just an exercise', or whether some of these Britons will soon be called on to perform a far more difficult and dangerous task.