With more than 60,000 U.S. troops and a large amount of Navy ships on the way to the Persian Gulf, local political experts say the Bush administration is trying to gain a political and environmental stronghold in the region.

Military planners are researching the country of Qatar in preparation for possible U.S. troop deployment.

Sixty thousand U.S. troops are currently in the Gulf region and an additional 67,000 will be sent in the next few weeks. U.S. forces in the Middle East could eventually reach 250,000.

Local professors said the move signifies growing concern over weapons possibly harbored in Iraq.

Steffen Schmidt, university professor of political science, said the U.S. military is stationed in Qatar to get acquainted with a surrounding similar to Iraq’s.

“[Stationing in Qatar] allows American troops who are not familiar with the climate, desert-like area, to prepare themselves and their equipment for war,” he said.

Schmidt said the military is also using Qatar for forward positioning to be close to Iraq in case war is declared. He also said the United States is trying to demonstrate to Arab countries, such as Iraq, that it is trying to cooperate with Qatar.

James McCormick, professor and chairman of political science, said military and national diplomats are joining forces by stationing troops in Qatar.

“I think [moving to Qatar] is part of an effort at coercive diplomacy to connect military efforts with diplomatic efforts that the United Nations are undertaking,” he said.

McCormick said he believes the Jan. 27 inspections test in Iraq will be an important date for determining when the United States will declare war in Iraq.

“Clearly [Qatar] is being used as a base of operation,” he said.

Schmidt said military personnel in Qatar are using the base to review map and video-based generations of the battlefield in Iraq.

“The U.S. military is using very high tech equipment for this war,” he said.

Schmidt said he believes the military is going to find and seize Iraq’s illegal weapons, if any.

“I think the U.S. actually knows where a lot of the stuff [illegal weapons] is that Saddam is hiding,” he said. “I think that we’ve put tracking devices on a lot of the [weapons] he’s imported over the last several years.”

— The Washington Post contributed to this story