On March 28 the Coast Guard cutter WRANGELL escorted the first commercially transported humanitarian aid shipment into the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. The 110-foot WRANGELL is based in Portland.
This shipment, aboard the Motor Vessel MANAR, consisted of 700 tons of food, water, first aid and vehicles. M/V MANAR was supplied and coordinated by the United Arab Emirate Red Crescent Society.
Three earlier shipments had been transported aboard British and Spanish naval vessels. Five other Coast Guard vessels and approximately 650 Coast Guard members were active in the Persian Gulf at the time of the Iraq war. Coast Guard operations there included maritime interdiction operations, port and coastal security and oil terminal security.
In April the Coast Guard moved the homeport assignment for two Coast Guard Cutters from New Bedford to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery. The TAHOMA and CAMPBELL, 270-foot medium endurance cutters, were commissioned in 1988 and have crews of approximately 100 each. They are among medium endurance cutters named for historically significant Coast Guard cutters. Their primary missions are homeland security, search and rescue, drug interdiction, migrant interdiction, and fisheries enforcement.