WASHINGTON, March 19: US special forces and CIA agents have already entered Iraq to prepare the battlefield for an invasion that would be code-named Operation Iraqi Freedom, major television channels here reported on Wednesday.

CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS also showed US troops entering, what they identified as “the staging area” close to the Iraqi border in Kuwait to launch the attack.

Some of the first regular troops to enter Iraq will come from the 1st Marine Division. On Tuesday, the division’s commander Gen James Mattis sent a letter to his troops saying: “When I give you the word, together we will cross the line of departure, close with those forces who choose to fight and destroy them.”

NBC news reported that CIA operatives were already working inside Iraq with Iraqi opposition on plans to sabotage Iraqi defence installations.

Of the 250,000 US troops arrayed against Iraq, about 130,000 are in Kuwait, the main launching pad for a ground invasion. About 30,000 British troops would also participate in the attack, the reports said.

The main army forces are the 3rd Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division, the army’s only helicopter assault division, both of which are in Kuwait.

With more than 200 tanks, the 3rd Infantry is expected to spearhead the drive to Baghdad.

More than 50,000 US Marines are assembled in northern Kuwait. Some of them will participate in an offensive up the western flank of the Tigris-Euphrates Delta toward Baghdad, while others were to take the southern city of Basra and the strategic Shatt al-Arab waterway, Iraq’s outlet to the Persian Gulf.

The Marine Corps is equipped with dozens of F/A-18 fighters, AV-8B Harrier jets and AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters.

About 1,000 US and British warplanes were arrayed on Iraq’s periphery, amid reports that the United States plans to drop as many as 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles inside Iraq in the first 48 hours.

LEAFLETS: US and coalition aircraft dropped almost two million more leaflets over southern Iraq on Wednesday, bringing the total to more than 17 million this year, according to US Central Command. The propaganda leaflets are intended to ease the way for US forces with Iraqi civilians if there is an invasion, and to warn Iraqi soldiers against using chemical or biological weapons.