Air Force Poised in Gulf With Formidable Options : Military: Experts say warplanes can devastate Iraq. But others note that bombing has never won a war.

The United States has assembled a formidable air armada in the Persian Gulf, capable of actions ranging from pinpoint guided-missile strikes against selected targets to the massive carpet-bombing practiced during the Vietnam War, according to U.S. officials.

The Pentagon is compiling an exhaustive list of potential Iraqi targets that military planners expect to hit with an array of airborne weapons if war should come. Current planning calls for massive air bombardment coupled with land and sea assaults--if President Bush gives the order for an all-out attack.

Analysts say targets for aircraft and missiles would include the presidential palace of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein; military command and control centers; Iraq’s chemical warfare and nuclear weapons development complexes; ballistic missile sites; military airfields; oil refineries and pipelines; water purification plants; the electrical grid; ports; rail lines and key highways.

The United States has dispatched to the Middle East more than 500 warplanes, ranging in sophistication from B-52 heavy bombers to the Air Force’s latest F-117A stealth fighters. The armada includes the air wings of four Navy aircraft carriers.

The massive deployment has revived a 50-year-old debate on the uses and limitations of air power. Many in and out of government are arguing over whether the Air Force can, in fact, hit all the designated targets in Iraq. And even if it can, they ask, will it force Hussein to capitulate?

Air Force officials and independent analysts contend that air power can devastate Iraq, crush its will to resist and be the decisive factor if conflict begins. And they say the United States has the aircraft and weapons in the region to do the job.

“Air power, properly applied, can influence the course of events,” said Russell D. Shaver, a senior RAND Corp. consultant to the Air Force. “We’re capable of doing it. The actual capability (of the aircraft and weapons) is classified, but sure, we can do it.”

Air power enthusiasts say the United States can quickly establish air superiority by destroying Iraqi air defenses and Iraq’s 500 warplanes. Simultaneous bombing strikes on critical military and industrial targets would cripple Iraq’s ability to retaliate and resist the advance of U.S. ground troops and Marines, they maintain.

This position has been advanced by former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and noted military strategist Edward N. Luttwak, as well as by the Israelis. If the United States goes to war against Iraq, Kissinger has said, the strategy should be the “surgical and progressive destruction of Iraq’s military assets.” Anything short of that, he suggested, would leave Hussein’s military machine in place to carry out later aggression.

Other analysts, however, note that bombing has never won a war and warn that the expectation that America can win a Middle East war with remote-control, push-button weapons is a fantasy.

“Putting all your chips on air power is in no sense a proven formula for success,” Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview. “That doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile; it’s one hell of a supplement to other things and good for wreaking damage on an opponent. But it’s not a quick or easy solution. You’ll lose planes and people, and as for bringing a decisive conclusion to the matter, probably not.”

Crowe, a former submarine officer, said the United States possessed air superiority in Korea and Vietnam and still failed to win either war.

“Quick, decisive, surgical--all those terms are misleading,” the admiral said. “Right now, it seems to be premature to talk in an offensive mode. There’s an awful lot more to do to put things in place to do the things the more ambitious people want us to do.”

Should President Bush choose to mount an air attack, he will have a wide range of weapons, tactics and targets from which to select.

Air Force officials made clear in interviews that air power would be applied massively and include strikes from B-52s carrying 500- and 2,000-pound bombs; F-111 fighter-bombers with Maverick television-guided missiles, laser-guided and gravity bombs; F-117A fighters with a full complement of guided missiles and bombs; F-15 and F-16 fighters configured for attack with Mavericks and bombs, and F-4G “Wild Weasels” specially designed to locate and attack enemy radar sites.

Each of the Navy’s four carriers in or en route to the region comes with an air wing that includes 24 F-14 fighters, 24 F/A-18 fighter-bombers carrying missiles and 500-pound bombs and A-6 attack planes with Harpoon anti-ship and HARM anti-radar missiles and bombs. The carrier air wings also include EA-6B Prowler planes for attacking enemy radar sites and S-3 submarine hunters carrying torpedoes and anti-ship rockets.

Early in the battle, the Air Force would seek to establish clear air superiority, using F-15 and F-16 fighters to shoot down enemy planes and Maverick- and HARM-equipped fighters to attack Iraqi anti-aircraft sites.

The HARM (high-speed anti-radar missile) homes in on the radar signals emitted by anti-aircraft missile guidance sites and is expected to be highly effective against the relatively primitive Soviet surface-to-air missiles that form the bulk of Iraqi air defenses.

The Navy’s F-14s probably would be called on to help establish air superiority by attacking Iraq’s fighter fleet of Soviet MIGs and Fencers and French Mirages. However, the carrier-based aircraft have limited range without refueling, and carriers cannot operate in the shallow, confined waters of the gulf, so it is not clear how extensive a role Navy aircraft would play in any air war over Iraq.

Iraq offers what military planners call a “target-rich environment”--critical armaments plants, military command centers, missile launch sites, airfields and important industrial facilities. U.S. intelligence on many of these facilities is said to be excellent, both because of intensive air and satellite surveillance and because Western companies were instrumental in helping build them.

Some of Iraq’s chemical weapons plants, for instance, were built with West German assistance, and U.S. officials have detailed blueprints. Knowledgeable sources said that such facilities would be attacked using “combined-effects munitions,” destroying the plants through a combination of blast and fire to incinerate deadly chemicals. Such weapons could be delivered by any of a number of Air Force planes, from high-level B-52s to stealthy F-117As.

Some of Iraq’s ballistic-missile production facilities were also built with Western aid and are likely to be high on any military targeter’s list, officials said.

Airfields, too, are relatively easy targets to identify and destroy, although sources said many of the Iraqi air force’s nine major bases contain hardened semi-underground shelters for aircraft. The U.S. arsenal contains several kinds of “penetrating” bombs that can burrow into runways and bunkers and then explode, making quick repair virtually impossible.

In addition, Air Force pilots are likely to drop fragmentation bombs on airfields to wreck any unprotected aircraft and kill crews in unreinforced buildings.

Iraq’s ballistic missiles pose a more difficult problem because they are relative small and mobile. The missiles, Iraqi-modified versions of Soviet Scud and Frog missiles, are thought to be deployed in sizable numbers along the borders with Kuwait and Jordan and around Baghdad.

U.S. military planners think they can detect any intention to launch the missiles, which have ranges of 300 to 600 miles, with more than an hour’s warning time, giving the Air Force sufficient notice to scramble attack planes to knock out the launchers.

All of this is on paper, of course. Real warfare is far more uncertain, regardless of the quality of weaponry and pilots. Planners misidentify targets, orders get confused, weapons fail to operate, sand and weather wreak havoc with aircraft and people make mistakes.

Military analysts said air power clearly can make a difference if it is brought to bear in conjunction with coordinated ground and sea attacks and firm political will. But by itself, air power has never decided a conflict, according to historians.

Even the well-known “Christmas bombing” of Vietnam in 1972, which supposedly brought the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table, only won a brief reprieve from a war that the North Vietnamese won 2 1/2 years later.

Said Harry G. Summers, a retired Army infantry officer and military historian: “The idea of air power being surgical is nonsense; it gives air power capabilities it does not in fact possess. The idea that we could use air power to bring Hussein to his knees is the height of fantasy, and we should not indulge in that sort of thing.”

U.S. Air Power in the Gulf Region

As U.S. and allied forces gather to confront Iraq, American airpower is concentrating at nearly air bases and on aircraft carriers at sea. Here are the main types of U.S. aircraft, their weaponry and possible targets, and Iraqi planes and missiles they might face.

U.S. NAVY

F-14 Tomcat

Armament:

* Sparrow, Sidewinder or Phoenix air-to-air missiles

F/A-18 Hornet

Armament:

* Sparrow and Sidewinder air-to-air missiles

* HARM anti-radar missiles

* Harpoon radar-guided anti-ship missiles

* SLAM stand-off land-attack missiles

* 500-lb. gravity bombs, GBU-10 and -12 laser-guided bombs

A-6 Intruder

Armament:

* Harpoon missiles

* HARM missiles

* Gravity bombs

EA-6B Prowler

Armament:

* HARM missiles

U.S. MARINES

AV-8B Harrier

Armament:

* 25 mm gun

* Sidewinder air-to-air missiles

* Maverick air-to-ground missiles

* Laser-guided and gravity bombs

* Rocket launchers

U.S. AIR FORCE

F-117A Stealth

Armament:

* Unspecified missiles

* Guided and gravity bombs

A-10 Thunderbolt

Armament:

* 30 mm high-speed cannon

* Maverick missiles

* Guided and gravity bombs

F-4G Wild Weasel

Armament:

* Shrike anti-radar missiles

* HARM anti-radar missiles

F-15E Eagle

Armament:

* Sparrow, Sidewinder or AMRAAM air-to-air missiles

* Maverick TV-guided missiles

* GBU-12/-24 laser-guided bombs

* GBU-15 TV-guided bombs

* Gravity bombs

F-16 Fighting Falcon

Armament:

* Sparrow, Sidewinder or AMRAAM air-to-air missiles

* Maverick TV-guided missiles

* GBU-12/-24 laser-guided bombs

* GBU-15 TV-guided bombs

* Gravity bombs

F-111

Armament:

* SRAM missiles

* Nuclear bombs

* Sparrow, Sidewinder or AMRAAM air-to-air missiles

* Maverick TV-guided missiles

* GBU-12/-24 laser-guided bombs

* GBU-15 TV-guided bombs

* Gravity bombs

B-52 Stratofortress

Armament:

* SRAM nuclear attack missiles

* AGM-86 nuclear cruise missiles

* Nuclear gravity bombs, 500-lb. and 2,000-lb. conventional gravity bombs

U.S. NAVAL FORCES DEPLOYED IN THE GULF REGION

1. Saratoga Battle Group

* Attack aircraft carrier Saratoga

* Battleship Wisconsin

* Aegis missile cruiser Philippine Sea

* Destroyer Spruance

* Guided-missile destroyer Sampson

* Frigates Elmer Montgomery and Thomas C. Hart

* Destroyer/tender Yellowstone

2. Eisenhower Battle Group

* Aircraft carrier Eisenhower

* Five other ships, including three destroyers

3. Independence Battle Group

* Command attack carrier Independence

* Missile cruiser Jouett

* Fleet oiler Cimarron

* Frigates Brewton and Reasoner

* Missile destroyer Goldsborough

* Ammunition ship Flint

4. John F. Kennedy Battle Group

* Guided-missile cruiser Mississippi

* Guided-missile cruiser San Jacinto

* Guided-missile cruiser Thmoas S. Gates

* Combat stores ship Sylvania

* Destroyer Moosbrugger

* Guided-missile frigate Roberts

* Combat support ship Seattle

In the Gulf

* Command ship La Salle

* Missile frigate Robert G. Bradley

* Aegis missile cruiser Antietam

* Guided-missile cruiser England

* Missile frigate Vandergrit

* Missile frigate Taylor

* Destroyer David R. Ray

* Guided-missile frigate Rentz

* Frigate Barbey

Additional Naval Forces

* Hospital ship Combat

* Amphibious transport dock Trenton

* Amphibious dock landing ship Portland

SENSITIVE TARGETS IN IRAQ

Major Iraqi Air Bases:

* Irbil

* Basra

* Habbaniyah

* An Nasiriyah

* Kirkuk

* Mosul

* Shu-aiba

* H-3

* H-2

Major Nuclear Power Plants

* Basra

* Dibis

* Baghdad

Nuclear Weapons Factories

* Tuwaybah

* Mosul

* Irbil

Petroleum Refinery Plants

* Kirkuk

* Baghdad

* Basra

Rocket and Bolistic Missile Production Plants

* Hillah

* Mosul

* Falluja

* Karbala

Chemical Production Plants

* Samarra

* Salman Peak