NEW YORK, July 29: As the Bush administration considers its military options for deposing Saddam Hussein, senior administration and Pentagon officials told the New York Times that they are exploring a new and risky approach: take Baghdad and one or two key command centers and weapons depots first, in hopes of cutting off the country’s leadership and causing a quick collapse of the government.

In an exclusive report, the NYT said that the “inside-out” approach, as some call it ‘Baghdad-first option’, would capitalize on the American military’s ability to strike over long distances, manoeuvring forces to envelop a large target. Those advocating that plan say it reflects a strong desire to find a strategy that would not require a full quarter-million American troops, yet hits hard enough to succeed.

One important aim would be to disrupt Iraq’s ability to order the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The advantages and risks of strikes aimed deep inside the country and radiating outward are now under active discussion, according to senior administration and Defence Department officials.

However, the paper said no formal plan has yet been presented to President Bush or the senior members of his national security team, and several officials cautioned that a number of alternatives were still under consideration.

The inside-out ideas are essentially the reverse of the American strategy in the Persian Gulf war of 1991, which dislodged Saddam’s occupying army from Kuwait.

The aim would be to kill or isolate Saddam Hussein and to pre- empt Iraq’s use of weapons of mass destruction, whether against an incoming force, frontline allies or Israel. Those weapons are the wild card in all the outlines of a military confrontation, the paper said.

US officials told the paper it may be possible to paralyze an Iraqi command-and-control system that is highly centralized and authoritarian.

Under such a system, mid-level officers are not taught to improvise, should they be cut off from commanders. It is also possible that those mid-level officers, if they fear that Saddam has been killed, would not bother to fire weapons of mass destruction.

If that can be accomplished with a smaller invasion force than the 250,000 troops suggested in early drafts, the approach could appeal to skittish gulf allies whose bases would be required for a war.

Those states are quietly advocating the quickest and smallest military operation possible, to lessen anti-American protests on their streets. In that sense, the war planning includes the political dimension of trying to tip reluctant allies into supporting the operation, the paper said.

Something nearer the 250,000 figure might have to be deployed to the region anyway, to make sure that any forces that drop into Baghdad do not become isolated or surrounded, bereft of a land line providing military support, food and ammunition.

The paper said it is clear that the debate over whether and how to dislodge Saddam is gaining speed within the administration and on Capitol Hill.

“There is a divergence of views on how can one best diminish the prospect that he uses weapons of mass destruction, with any efficacy,” Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the paper, and who stressed that he had not been briefed on administration thinking.

Senator Biden, told the paper that he is preparing to hold hearings on Iraq this week.: “That is where the argument for an inside-out operation gains credibility. There is a diminished possibility that he will use chemical or biological weapons.”

In May, President Bush was presented with concepts that advocated a major invasion, but some senior officials are said to view the plan as unimaginative.

In contrast, the Times said that a key national security aide, retired Gen. Wayne A. Downing, had reportedly argued that Saddam could be toppled with minimal numbers of Americans on the ground, provided they were backed up by huge airstrikes.

However, senior officials concluded that a proxy battle would be insufficient to bring a change in power in Iraq, and General Downing left the White House last month.

The Times said, however, no timetable has been set for military action, and if President Bush decides to go ahead, his aides say, he will have to make a public, convincing case about why Saddam poses an intolerable threat to the United States and its allies.

Some members of Congress, including conservative Republicans, are beginning to urge Bush to explain his reasoning and goals before committing American forces to topple a foreign government that has not attacked the United States.

“The time will come to do all of that,” a senior administration official told the paper in an interview on Friday. “And no one is opposed to doing it.”

A plan to immobilize the Iraqi leadership would draw from lessons learned on manoeuvre warfare in the invasion of Panama, which Dick Cheney and Colin L. Powell directed, and on the surprise Inchon Sea landing in Korea in 1951, according to officials who monitor the internal debate, the paper said.

“To the degree that you can have strategic and, especially, tactical surprise in any military operation, that is important,” another senior Defence Department official told the paper.

President Bush has put Saddam on direct notice that regime change is American policy. But just as the Taliban and Al Qaeda had little doubt that the United States would respond to the attacks of Sept 11, the timing and tactics achieved a great measure of surprise, military officials told the paper.