U.S., Qatar sign pact for air base

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani signed the base pact Wednesday.

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DOHA, Qatar (CNN) -- The United States and Qatar signed an agreement Wednesday that formally allows the United States to use the huge Al Udeid Air Base in the small Persian Gulf state, CNN has learned.

The agreement, which was signed by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani, puts on paper what has been in practice for several years.

The air base has the longest runway in the Persian Gulf region, at about 15,000 feet. Qatar occupies a peninsula projecting into the southwest Persian Gulf and has borders with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

In addition to signing the agreement, Rumsfeld also is in Qatar to witness U.S. war games -- dubbed Internal Look -- designed to prepare American forces for a possible war against Iraq.

The war games began Monday. Internal Look is a biennial exercise to test the command, control and communications ability of U.S. Central Command headquarters and all component commands throughout its area of responsibility.

CentCom, which is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, coordinates U.S. military operations throughout the Horn of Africa, South and Central Asia, and northern Red Sea regions, as well as the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq, according to its Web site.

For the first time, the operation is being run from outside the United States.

A mobile command post, shipped from Florida, will remain in Qatar after the exercise concludes next week.

In September, Pentagon officials cautioned that while preliminary plans were afoot to move the Central Command headquarters to Qatar, the proposal was contingent on several unresolved issues, including how Qatar officials receive the exercise.

CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer contributed to this report

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