[Pfc.Green]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Army has alerted more than 10,000 part-time troops to prepare for active duty and movement overseas beginning as early as this week to support a U.S. military build-up near Iraq, Army officials said on Monday.

The Reserve and National Guard soldiers, including engineers and intelligence specialists, were told in recent days that they could be rapidly deployed between Jan. 10 and late February, the officials told Reuters.

The alert came as the U.S. Navy (news - web sites) hospital ship Comfort sailed out of the port of Baltimore, Maryland, for the Gulf region to prepare to handle casualties in any invasion of Iraq ordered by President Bush (news - web sites).

An Army Reserve spokesman would not be specific about the new deployment. But other Army officials said most of the troops were likely to go to the Gulf, where the military is moving quickly to at least double the nearly 60,000 U.S. troops now there for a possible war with Iraq.

Albert Schilf, a spokesman for Army reserve forces commander Lt. Gen. James Helmly, confirmed a report in USA Today that the part-time troops from dozens of units had been told to prepare for active duty and movement.

"They've been alerted," Schilf told Reuters, adding that the activation was also likely to include military police and civil affairs specialists.

There are currently about 55,000 U.S. Reserve and National Guard troops from all of the military services on active duty -- most of them in the United States -- as part of a mobilization sparked by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.