Strategy Against Iraq Calls For Swift Attack

With its decision to deploy 25,000 U.S.-based troops to the Persian Gulf region, the Pentagon is implementing a plan for a possible war with Saddam Hussein that 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 deployment orders, sent out last week, call 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. The orders come even as U.N. weapons inspectors are stepping up their searches for any evidence that Iraq retains banned weapons.

“It shows that, following the holidays, the U.N. inspections can be expected to get more serious and the U.S. buildup can be expected to get more immediate and with more of the direct combat forces flowing in,” said Benjamin Works, executive director of the Strategic Issues Research Institute, a think tank.

“I think you can expect a very rapid ground campaign,” Works said. “The geography allows it, the scenario dictates it, and the forces we are moving are tailored for this kind of maneuver.”

The plan also is designed to signal how solid the Bush administration’s resolve is to unseat Hussein from power, a senior military official said.

“This is significant. It involves multiple air, land and sea assets. And Iraq should make no mistake about our intentions,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In Crawford, Texas, President Bush in his weekly radio address Saturday repeated his warning that the U.S. will confront Hussein head-on. “The United Nations Security Council has unanimously affirmed that Saddam Hussein is a danger to his neighbors and to the peace of the world,” Bush said. “The burden now is on Iraq’s dictator to disclose and destroy his arsenal of weapons. If he refuses, then for the sake of peace, the United States will lead a coalition to disarm the Iraqi regime and free the Iraqi people.”

With thousands of land, sea and air troops at bases across the country preparing this weekend to leave their homes and families, the brinkmanship that has played out between the U.S. and Iraq for 11 years appeared to be edging closer than ever to war. The deployment order calls for moving the troops out over the next few weeks, with the first leaving just after New Year’s.

The selection of five wings of warplanes and bombers shows that the U.S. 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.

And the apparent absence of heavy armored divisions among the ground troops being deployed probably means that war strategists have decided on a plan that calls for crippling Hussein’s command by striking Baghdad and key targets first.

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 U.S. already has positioned significant troops and equipment, to Baghdad. Such a campaign would require 70,000 to 100,000 troops, they say.

Unlike the 1991 attack, which primarily targeted Iraqi military assets and troops, the plan would seek to decapitate the Iraqi government by hitting Hussein’s institutional power base, including presidential palaces, military and security police facilities and bases. Particular attention would be given to Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, while targets such as bridges and other infrastructure targets would be avoided.

As many as 250,000 soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors 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.

“They’re deploying enough air power to start the war, but still not enough ground forces to finish the war, so to me this confirms that they think of this as a sequenced operation,” said Owen Cote, associate director of the security studies program at MIT. “When this war kicks off, all the forces needed to finish the war are not going to be there.”

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. Instead, the main force would advance toward Baghdad through the desert that covers western Iraq and much of the south.

“What you’re seeing is a very, very competent military doing what a competent military does,” said Harlan Ullman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It is preparing for the possibility of an all-out campaign to end the regime of Saddam Hussein and at least the destruction of his weapons of mass destruction programs, no more, no less.”

It is Iraqi air defenses that pose among the thorniest problems for war planners casing out options for attacking Iraq. Since 1991, Hussein has vastly improved his air defenses, particularly those around Baghdad, installing mobile radars on truck beds, smuggling high-technology missile systems into the country from other nations, and building a fiber-optic network that has greatly improved his military’s communications capability.

“Since you can’t smash up the Iraqi infrastructure, because you’re looking to liberate the people, then what you have to do is destroy the air defenses, the command and control facilities, the intelligence capabilities, in rapid fire,” Works said. “And then you need to move so fast to unseat Saddam that he doesn’t have time to mount a credible urban defense.”

As the military prepares for a potential conflict, deployment orders are putting a damper on New Year’s celebrations in military towns across the country. When the movements are completed, the Pentagon will have positioned about half of the 50,000 troops officials previously had indicated would be moving to the region. They will join about 57,000 troops in position.

“These men and women could be over there till it’s over, and that could be a long time. And if the administration does not initiate military operations sooner, then there’s no telling how long they could be on station,” Ullman said. “So the uncertainties on the home front to which there are no answers are extraordinary.”

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Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Waco, Texas, contributed to this report.