US Military Plan Against Iraq Focuses on Hussein's Power Base: Report

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, December 30, 2002

US Military Plan Against Iraq Focuses on Hussein's Power Base: Report

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Unlike the 1991 attack, which primarily targeted Iraqi military assets and troops, the current US military plan would shift focus to decapitating President Saddam Hussein's power base, military analysts were quoted as saying Sunday.

The United State's decision to deploy 25,000 U.S.-based troops to the Persian Gulf region appeared to indicate that the brinkmanship played out between the US and Iraq for 11 years is edging closer than ever to war, the Los Angeles Times reported.

With the deployment, the Pentagon is implementing a plan for a possible war with Iraq calls for the rapid unleashing of massive air power backed by light, mobile ground forces trained to penetrate quickly into the heart of Iraq, the reported said.

Last week, the Pentagon also issued the deployment orders for readying five wings of powerful fighter jets, B-1B Lancers capable of carrying scores of bombs at a time, Predator drones and two aircraft carrier battle groups.

This shows that the US is readying its major air assets for a large-scale bombing campaign designed to wipe out Iraqi air defenses in the first days of a campaign, military analysts said.

Such a strike could be launched quickly, starting with intense and focused air attacks on a scale that would dwarf the air campaigns in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and recently in Afghanistan, according to military officials and analysts.

That would be followed by a combined airborne and ground assault on strategic targets, with lightly equipped ground troops advancing rapidly from Kuwait, where the US already has positioned significant troops and equipment, to Baghdad.

"I think you can expect a very rapid ground campaign. The geography allows it, the scenario dictates it, and the forces we are moving are tailored for this kind of maneuver," said Benjamin Works, executive director of the Strategic Issues Research Institute, a think tank.

As many as 250,000 US troops could eventually be deployed to the region under the plan, but many ground troops would be held back at bases in Turkey, Kuwait and Qatar as reserve forces in case the initial invasion met unexpected resistance, the report said.

The ground campaign would start in Kuwait, but avoid getting bogged down in southeastern Iraq, in the spongy marshland between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The main force would advance toward Baghdad through the desert that covers western Iraq and much of the south, military analysts said.

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