THERE ARE NO SIGNS marking the junction where a dusty turning leads to the patch of desert that could mean the end of the road for Saddam Hussein. On the outskirts of Doha, the capital of Qatar, past a litter-blown district of industrial buildings and just before the main road leaves civilisation to run for 40-odd miles (70km) across arid Bedouin country to the border with Saudi Arabia, a cluster of prefabricated warehouses stands low against the hazy horizon.

They are hard to spot even if you are looking for them and you would not have the faintest idea what they were unless you took the left hand turning. This road runs alongside a wire fence, which is further protected by a waist-high wall of rocks. After a mile there is a gate, watched over by plain-clothed American guards who check the occasional Jeep and heavy lorry that passes through.

Here, in a barren corner of one of the tiniest and least known countries of the Middle East, the world’s mightiest power is plotting the downfall of the Iraqi leader. This is Camp As Sayliyah, and if the US goes to war with Iraq it will become a household name.

The camp will be the command and control centre during a war and over the past ten days around 1,000 US military planners from Central Command in Tampa, Florida, have taken up their positions in front of computer consoles in the temperature controlled warehouses. A nearby media centre will accommodate 300 journalists and will be the arena for General Tommy Franks, the head of Centcom and the Norman Schwarzkopf of our day, to inform the world of progress in the conflict.

It cost more than $100 million (£62m) to build one million sq ft of facilities on the 262- acre site, which is crammed with tanks and equipment ready for deployment.

The first indication of the vital role that Qatar would play in a new Gulf War came when the US staged a major war game, Internal Look, at Camp As Sayliyah last month. It was a trial run for the command hub and around 400 British war planners took part. A British official says he expects a similar number will return for the real hostilities.

Internal Look was commanded by Franks. When it was over, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, flew in and signed a deal with Qatar to formalise the presence of 4,000 US soldiers at al-Udeid, the air base a few miles up the road from the camp.

Al-Udeid has a 15,000ft (4.5km) runway, the longest in the Gulf, built in 1996 at a cost of $1 billion. But there are no Qatari planes here and they did not build it for themselves. Only American cargo and refuelling planes can be seen hulking against the sky.

Qatar, a former British protectorate, is a country few could place on a map let alone pronounce (it’s somewhere between “cutter” and “gutter” but not “catarrh”). The story of how it has come to find the eyes of the world turning to its palm-fringed beaches and interior wastelands contains many themes common throughout the modern Arab world; the discovery of abundant natural resources that bring sudden massive wealth, brutal political power struggles and uneasy relations with the neighbours resulting in a history of border disputes.

But Qatar is unlike any other Arab country. First, its Emir has archaic powers but a progressive outlook that has convinced many people that he might genuinely be seeking to create a model, modern Arab state. Secondly, it has developed an extraordinarily close relationship with the United States, which is of paramount importance both to the Qataris and to President Bush.

Qatar is about the size of Connecticut (11,500 sqkm) and sticks out into the Gulf like a thumb. Like a sore thumb, its critics in the region would say. For most of its history this little peninsula was poverty-stricken and of little consequence. In 1867 the Emir signed a deal for protection with Britain and Qatar became an official protectorate in 1916, remaining so until 1971 when the British pulled out and Qatar became independent.

The only real source of revenue was pearls and when the international pearl market collapsed in 1930 even this evaporated. Then came the discovery of oil and the country went through its first boom in the 1950s. In the 1970s, when oil prices took off, Qatar became even more wealthy. But more important was the discovery in the early 1970s of the North Field, the largest offshore natural gas field in the world. Development of the 6,000 sq km field, which is shared with Iran, began in the 1990s. There are estimated reserves of 900 trillion standard cubic feet and Qatar will be able to produce huge quantities of liquefied natural gas for more than 200 years.

Such wealth brings its own problems, but in Qatar’s case they come from outside the country. Long-running territorial disputes with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were settled in 2001 but resources-rich Qatar still cannot feel secure.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• No apology for Germany’s own Nazi victims
• Intricate web of fear and hope tying down deal
• Victims remembered a year after Mumbai attacks