U.S. Plans Lightning Strikes

Turkey’s government indicated Monday that it might now be willing to open its territory to U.S. troops or warplanes, and the Pentagon scrambled to put its final pieces of combat power in place for an invasion of Iraq.

War plans call for simultaneous, lightning-quick operations by air, land and sea to overwhelm Iraq’s shaky military forces. Heavy mechanized forces would speed toward Baghdad, bypassing Iraqi regular army units in a drive to reach the seat of President Saddam Hussein’s power. The vanguard of the U.S. force would leave it to a second wave to engage those Iraqi forces. Special operations forces would parachute from helicopters deep behind enemy lines.

Whereas the United States took six months to position its forces for the 1991 Persian Gulf War and five weeks to bomb Iraqi targets before the ground war began, current war plans call for, at most, 48 hours of bombings -- using tens of thousands of precision-guided munitions -- before U.S. troops storm across Iraq’s border.

Arranged across Kuwait to lead the charge are about 130,000 Americans, including 21,000 of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, more than 21,000 of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, about 64,000 Marines, 5,000 of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and several thousand special operations troops. Also in Kuwait are headquarters elements of the Army’s V Corps and about 25,000 British troops. About 1,100 military aircraft, ranging from land-based Air Force fighter jets and bombers to Navy and Marine fighter and support planes launched from aircraft carriers, are in the region.

The aircraft carriers Theodore Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman steamed from the eastern Mediterranean, where they had been positioned to launch fighter jets into northern Iraq, through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea. But about three dozen large roll-on/roll-off cargo ships loaded with heavy armored equipment for the Army’s 4th Infantry Division remained off the Turkish coast.

The question of what access Turkey will give U.S. troops has added uncertainty to the Pentagon’s plans. The Pentagon had been counting on rolling a heavy armored Army division through a mountain pass from Turkey into northern Iraq to overwhelm Iraqi forces and make Hussein fight on several fronts.

On March 1, Turkey’s parliament refused to let 62,000 American troops use Turkey as a base for a northern front. With Turkey’s predominantly Muslim populace strongly against an attack on Iraq, Turkish leaders had been reluctant to try to reverse that decision without a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing war.

But the government shifted course Monday, following messages in recent days that the Bush administration had given up on Turkey and withdrawn a $15-billion aid offer conditioned on wartime support. The country’s main stock market plummeted more than 10% Monday, and the Turkish lira fell 3%.

A meeting of the Turkish president, the prime minister, the foreign minister and the top military commander late Monday produced a statement saying that war in Iraq “now seems inevitable and beyond our control” and would harm Turkey’s interests unless the government takes “immediate steps to assure those interests.”

“A unanimous decision was reached ... that there is a need to move urgently,” presidential spokesman Tacan Ildem said.

The statement, though vague, marked an abrupt turnabout that could bring a new parliamentary vote on U.S. troop deployment -- or at least an opening of Turkish airspace to U.S. warplanes -- as early as Wednesday. An official said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Cabinet would meet today to draft a proposal.

A senior U.S. military official said Monday that it was not too late for a turnaround by Turkey to make a northern front possible, although U.S. troops might have to begin their attack from the north after combat operations had begun elsewhere.

“The ships are still out there. And if Turkey gives us approval, they [the 4th Infantry Division] can still be used in a later stage of the operation,” the official said.

Otherwise, the U.S. military appeared to be poised for war.

In Kuwait, the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, the 101st Airborne Division and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force have been equipped for several weeks with supplies they need to launch combat operations. Air Force fighter jets and long-range bombers are at the ready at bases throughout the area. The Navy has five aircraft carrier battle groups in the region.

While several other Army divisions that have been given orders to deploy are still in the U.S. and Germany, the 225,000-plus troops in the region around Iraq provide more than enough firepower to attack by land, sea and air whenever President Bush gives the go-ahead, military officials said Monday.

“All the Air Force pieces are ready to call checkmate,” an Air Force official said Monday.

“We’re basically there. We’re just awaiting the ‘go’ order.”

Army Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of the U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf region, met in Kuwait on Monday with his land forces commander, Army Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan. Franks then returned to his Central Command post at Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar. On Saturday he met with Navy and Marine Corps commanders in Bahrain.

In addition to the forces already deployed in the region, three powerful armored units -- the 1st Cavalry Division, the 1st Armored Division and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment -- are still in the U.S., along with the 4th Infantry Division. They are expected to arrive in the gulf region by mid-to-late-April.

Few of the fighting units positioned in the region are equipped with their full complement of supplies, but all have what they need to go into combat, said Gary Motsek, director of support operations for the Army Materiel Command.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. William “Gus” Pagonis, who directed logistics during the Gulf War, said the Pentagon appears to have the complex logistics needed to equip its forces well in hand. He said many of the generals now commanding forces in the region fought in the Gulf War 12 years ago.

“We documented the Gulf War more than any other war in our history from a logistics point of view,” Pagonis said. “And for the last 12 years the people who are in charge now have been studying firsthand articles and books written by people who were actually there.

“These kids are very talented, but now they have to execute,” Pagonis said. “When people are moving around on the battlefield and chemical weapons are used, even the simplest of plans becomes very complicated.”

Times staff writers Richard Boudreaux in Ankara, Turkey, and John Hendren in Washington contributed to this report.