Magazine Describes U.S. Plan for Gulf War

A French newsmagazine reported today that U.S. military officials have drawn up plans to free Kuwait and defeat Iraq in a four-day offensive that would leave Saddam Hussein’s armed forces in ruins at the cost of 20,000 American lives.

L’Express said it obtained an outline of Operation Night Camel from an unidentified adviser to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. The weekly news magazine has one of the largest circulations in France.

It said U.S. planners estimated that the offensive might cost 20,000 American lives. It gave no estimate for dead of other nations.

The attack would begin on a moonless November night with an air assault by American warplanes dispatched from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the aircraft carrier Independence, the magazine said.

The planes would attempt to destroy Iraq’s air power, neutralizing radar systems, bombing missile bases and attacking air bases before Iraqi planes could counterattack, L’Express said.

In the second phase, L’Express said, warplanes and missiles would be used to “annihilate” Iraq’s entire military industrial complex. Targets would include nuclear facilities, chemical weapon depots, arms factories, command bunkers and the main highway to Kuwait.

The magazine said the goal of the third phase would be to cut off links between Kuwait and Iraq. It said U.S. Green Berets and Navy commandos would infiltrate behind Iraqi lines to disrupt communications.

Then, it said, the multinational force would launch an offensive along the Iraqi-Kuwait border involving tank-killer planes, combat helicopters and 200 U.S. M-1 tanks. This would be aimed at cutting off the 170,000 Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait from supplies and reinforcements in Iraq.

The fourth and final phase, according to L’Express, would be an even larger offensive to reconquer Kuwait. It said 11,000 U.S. Marines would land on Kuwait’s north coast, while 45,000 Marines, three mechanized U.S. Army infantry battalions, 4,000 French troops, 6,000 British troops and 50,000 soldiers from the pan-Arab force would cross into Kuwait from the south to “liberate it meter by meter.”