Saddam To Face Missile Storm

America plans a devastating onslaught on Iraq's air defences, political and military headquarters, communications facilities and suspected chemical and biological delivery systems in the opening 48 hours of the expected war, say Pentagon officials.

The first two days of the campaign, in which 3,000 precision-guided missiles and bombs will be fired, will bring the most intense bombing of its kind ever launched.

It will involve 10 times the number of missiles fired at the start of the 1991 Gulf War. The details emerged as The Telegraph learned that the RAF will triple its presence in the Gulf this week.

The bombing will be followed immediately, and in some cases simultaneously, by parachute-assisted assaults involving British and American special forces and airborne divisions.

The tactics are designed to have maximum shock effect to break the morale of the Iraqi army and give its troops no alternative but to surrender or die within hours of the opening attack.

"The war will start with an extremely large bang," a US defence department official told the New York Times. "The point of the exercise will be to avoid fighting in Iraq's cities and persuade Iraqi forces very quickly that there is no point in fighting to defend the regime."

As the precision bombing eases the US army's third infantry division and a contingent of marines will drive north from Kuwait at the same time as the fourth infantry division punches south from Turkey.

The aim will be to prevent Saddam Hussein setting oil fields on fire, flooding the southern marshes to delay ground assaults and from launching chemical and biological weapons.

Tony Blair, who returned from Washington yesterday after his summit with President George W Bush, will tomorrow meet President Jacques Chirac of France, who continues to insist that "nothing yet justifies military action".

US 'plans swift use of ground forces'

Julian Borger in Washington, Richard Norton-Taylor and Jonathan Steele
Monday February 3, 2003
The Guardian

The US will use more than 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles in a 48-hour air onslaught on Iraq, followed by a two-pronged ground invasion barely a week later, according to war plans outlined by the New York Times yesterday. Citing military officials, the paper said the US would rely on "smart" weapons more than in the 1991 Gulf War to minimise civilian casualties and limit damage caused to Iraq's infrastructure.

Unlike the attack on Afghanistan in 2001 when ground troops were held back for several weeks after the bombing began, the Pentagon will send armoured columns from two directions to drive towards Baghdad while special forces will come in by helicopter to seize oil fields to prevent them from being blown up by the Iraqis.

Plans for the air campaign also include the contingency of using nuclear weapons in retaliation for a chemical or biological attack by Iraqi forces, or to penetrate a deep bunker suspected of holding stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, according to other US reports.

A classified presidential directive signed last September and leaked to the Washington Times allows for the use of nuclear weapons against chemical or biological weapons, ending a policy of ambiguity on the subject.

According to reports a list of possible targets has been drawn up in a "Theater Nuclear Planning Document" by Stratcom, the Pentagon's nuclear planning wing. The document was prepared for both the administration and Central Command, which will oversee the war in Iraq.

It is unlikely that nuclear weapons would be used, if only because of the international outrage their use would cause, but US military analysts said the plans showed that the Bush administration was blurring the lines that once set the nuclear option apart from other weapons.

The leaked war plans came as some 800 Royal Marine commandos, supported by engineers and communications experts, flew into Kuwait in the first significant deployment of British ground forces to the Gulf.

Kuwait will be the main base for British ground troops, including a British armoured brigade, equipped with more than 100 Challenger 2 battletanks and long-range artillery.

The government has still to announce where Britain's other main ground force - the 16 Air Assault Brigade, including paratroopers backed up by light artillery - will be based.

It has also not yet announced the deployment of an air package, likely to include Tornado, Jaguar and Harrier bombers, as well as in-flight refuelling aircraft, Nimrod spy planes, and Canberra aerial reconnaissance aircraft.

The air campaign could be over in a week, the New York Times report said.

"The Army's Third Infantry Division and a sizeable contingent of Marines would be assigned to punch north from Kuwait, while a force spearheaded by the Fourth Infantry Division... would move south from Turkey," the paper said.

Paul Keetch, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman who recently visited Kuwait, disclosed yesterday that British troops heading for the Gulf have been issued with a radio system, the Clansman, which malfunctions.

In addition, Challenger 2 tanks which need to be modified for desert conditions, will only be upgraded once they get to the Gulf, he said.

Mr Keetch described the MoD's lack of preparation as inexplicable.

Actually, it could be.

In the first Gulf War, it was obvious months ahead of time that we were going to stage a flanking armor attack around the western end of Saddam's dug-in defensive line. What other battle plan could we possibly use, given the layout? But after we gained full control of the air, Saddam was unable to move his troops to his right to block such a flanking maneuver, because they would have been obliterated from the air as soon as they stuck their heads up.

In other words, sometimes it doesn't help much to know what the other side will do, unless you can find a useful counter to it.

One obvious reason why Bush has waited so long to mount an attack is that, as was well publicized, clinton exhausted almost all our cruise missiles in the Balkans on pointless targets. So now, presumably, Boeing has had time to replace them. Reports back then said it would take a couple of years to gear up the assembly line and get them rolling off it.

Let's play Saddam.

Suppose you were Saddam --- commander in chief of the either soon to be eviscerated or the soon to be turn coat Iraqi army. What would you do? Assume surrender is not an option. Assume going into exile is not an option.

You KNOW the GW is serious. It's personal. It's strategic. It cannot be avoided, it can only be delayed, and only a little, at that. You know that however many casualties you cost the Americans -- which if Gulg War I was any indication won't be lot -- Bush will be undeterred. This is for keeps, for all the marbles.

What do you do, besides shit a brick?

This is what I would do.

(a) Try to reach a rapproachment with the Iranians. Foreswear any designs on Iranian territory hence forth, pledge cooperation in all fields -- from oil to nukes.

Iran just might bite. The mullahs must know their own days are numbered. Their people are restive and they are about to have 100k US troops parked on their doorsteps for a good long tme. What would they give to avoid that? Teaming up with a ready to bargin Saddam (in secret, of course) is the least they can do.

What does Saddam get. A potentially reinforcing ally. A clandestine source of supplies and possibly troops. A place from which scuds can be fired at the approaching Allied onslaught.

(b) Attack first and hard, but in a low profile sort of way.

By this I mean that I would not repeat the mistake of Iraq in Gulf War I. The American's army was for awhile a sitting duck, before the build up of forces in Saudi Arabia was complete. Iraq could have moved early, but feared provoking an attack that thought could either be deterred or ridden out.

They were wrong. The attack was not going to be deterred and they underestimated our ferocity.

I wouldn't do that again., if I can. But it's delicate. Iraq can't strike NOW. That would play into Bush's hands. Bring the whole world to our side. Plus troops on the move, in the open desert, with no air cover are sitting ducks, as Saddam knows by now.

What to do? You can't move masses of troops. But once Bush gives his final ultimatum, especially if the coalition of the willing consists just of us, the Brits and a few pygmy powers, if I were Saddam I would immediately launch every scud I have on the American Bases in Kuwait, armed with every poison I could muster. If I could get the Iranians to do the same, I would -- but that is dicier, since they are more likely to want to help in ways that show no footprints.

Simultaneously, I would unleash whatever I or my perhaps newfound partners in Al Quaeda can on the US mainland. If we have a dirty nuke or anthrax or whatever, use it now, before the first US shot is fired. It would enable me to take out the maximum number of troops, since once the US moves, there will be no safe haven anywehre in Iraq for me or my ragtag army. It would also scare the bejesus out of the American populace, by killing tens of thousands if I could. Undermine their confidence that papa Bush is able to protect them, even a year and a half after 9/11.

It would be my own version of "shock and awe."

The beauty of is thatthe attack on the US mainland need not have my fingerprints on it. I could argue then that the US ultimatum has already inflamed muslims everywhere and that things are only going to get worse for the US.

(c) Of course, the US is still going to come, perhaps with more ferocity than they would otherwise have mustered. But I don't give them what they are looking for -- tank-to-tank battles and the like. I would disperse my forces, let the US advance basically unimpeded toward the cities. Even let them enter the cities w/out a real fight -- except perhaps I might throw an army of conscripts at them for good measure.

But then I would come at them from every manhole cover, every hovel and hamlet, every nook and cranny of every major city.

(d) I would probably torch my oil wells, and if I could slip in to Kuwait, Kuwaiti oil wells from the first moment of the war, perhaps before a shot is even fired. I would of course blame it on American sabatoge.

All this happens as soon as Bush lays down an ultimatum, before one cruise missle is fired.

BOTTOM LINE: Don't assume that Saddam will merely "respond." That was his mistake first time around. He might no make the same mistake twice.

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