U.S. Officials on Morale Mission to Kuwait

KUWAIT (Reuter) - Secretary of the Army Togo West arrived in Kuwait Tuesday as part of visits by senior U.S. officials and officers to American troops deployed close to the Iraqi border.

West is due to meet with some of the approximately 4,600 U.S. ground forces deployed in Kuwait and will hand them letters and parcels from relatives back home, a military spokesman said.

West will leave Kuwait before Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday to visit other U.S. forces in the oil-rich region.

Defense Secretary William Perry will visit the troops on Friday as part of a globe-circling trip that will also take him to other Persian Gulf Arab states, Bosnia and Japan.

Perry, diplomats say, is expected to discuss in Kuwait the duration of the deployment of U.S. forces in the tiny state. The troop deployment is up for review in mid-December.

In addition to some 1,200 soldiers who deployed in Kuwait in August, Washington in September rushed an additional 3,000 ground forces to Kuwait in a fresh standoff with Iraq.