NEW YORK, Feb 2: The Pentagon’s war plan for Iraq calls for unleashing 3,000 guided missiles and bombs in the first 48 hours of the opening air campaign, an effort intended to stagger and isolate the Iraqi military and quickly pave the way for a ground attack to topple a government in shock, the New York Times said on Sunday.
The paper said that the initial bombardment would use 10 times the number of precision-guided weapons fired in the first two days of the Gulf War, and the targets would be air defences, political and military headquarters, communications facilities and suspected chemical and biological delivery systems, military and civilian Pentagon officials said.
The constant leaking of details from the war plan comes as the United States is mounting pressure for Mr Saddam Hussein to leave the country peacefully and take haven elsewhere to pave the way for disarmament and establishment of a democratic government in Baghdad.
To minimize civilian casualties and immediately isolate Mr Hussein from his military, the air plan would rely far more on all-weather, satellite-guided bombs than was done in the Gulf War.
“If President George W. Bush makes a decision to go, Iraq’s military and the civilian leadership will know it quickly in spades,” one US official told the paper. “It will also be clear that we are not going after the man on the street.”
US military planners told the Times the immediate goals would be to break the Iraqi army’s will to fight, driving large number of troops to surrender or defect — and offering them guarded sanctuary if they do — while cutting off the leadership in Baghdad in hopes of causing a rapid collapse of the government of President Saddam Hussein.
The air campaign would be carried out by about 500 air force attack, radar-jamming and support planes flying from bases scattered throughout the Gulf region and nearby, as well as by navy planes from either four or five aircraft carriers, each carrying about 80 attack and support aircraft.
About 300 American warplanes are already based at airfields north and south of Iraq. Two of the aircraft carriers are now stationed in the region, with two more scheduled to arrive within striking distance later this month.
As the United States wants to help rebuild Iraq quickly after any conflict, the air campaign is intended to limit damage to Iraqi infrastructure and to minimize civilian casualties.
“The challenges in this air campaign will be to achieve certain military and psychological effects at the outset, but have as much of the infrastructure existing when it’s over,” Gen Ronald R. Fogleman, a former Air Force Chief of Staff who is a member of the Defence Policy Board, a panel that advises Defence Secretary Mr Donald H. Rumsfeld, told the Times.
The ground war would be carried out by two army divisions and an expanded Marine Expeditionary Force. The army’s Third Infantry Division and a sizable contingent of marines would be assigned to punch north from Kuwait, while a force spearheaded by the Fourth Infantry Division, whose tanks and armoured fighting vehicles are equipped with the service’s most sophisticated digital communications and target-acquisition systems, would move south from Turkey.
A large number of other army forces with an array of capabilities — including elements of the 82nd Airborne and 101st Airborne divisions — would be assigned to special missions.
Administration officials are highly sensitive to political considerations in Turkey, and they refused to discuss negotiations over the use of bases with the government in Ankara.
However, the paper said that an assessment of troop deployment orders indicates a plan to send sizable heavy forces through Turkey and into Iraq, while keeping the number of American troops within Turkey at any one time within a cap set by the Turkish government. Saudi Arabia has likewise presented a diplomatic challenge.
Currently, no offensive air strike missions are expected to fly out of Saudi Arabia, but access to bases elsewhere in
the region allowed the United States Central Command to structure a war plan that does not rely Saudi territory to carry out attacks.
