Lining up at the pump

HEADNOTE

Army Lt. Col. Ralph Wells arrived in Bahrain on July 2, 2001, to take over command of the Defense Energy Support Center's (DESC) Middle East operations.

A division of the Defense Logistics Agency, the DESC

supplies fuel to all of the military services. Among Wells' first tasks was visiting the 26 countries encompassed by his command. He wanted to meet his counterparts and the suppliers DLA relies on for fuel. U.S. military forces use foreign air bases to refuel cargo planes and jets and to supply fuel for troops on the ground. Wells needed to get a sense of the capabilities of those bases in case the United States needed support.

But the Sept. 11 attacks cut short his trip.

"We had not yet ventured into the Central Asian countries or Pakistan or Afghanistan," Wells says.

Had he been able to visit those countries, Wells would have found only a limited capacity to support a US. military operation in the region. Instead, it was baptism by fire. Almost immediately, demands for fuel to fight the war in Afghanistan overwhelmed operations at the foreign bases. In Qatar, for instance, the air base at Doha could pump only 300,000 gallons of fuel a day. At Seeb Air Base, Oman's military could supply US. forces with just 350,000 gallons a day. That was far less than what was needed.