NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, July 5, 2002

The Times report, which quoted a person familiar with the document, said air, land and sea-based forces have been called upon to attack Iraq from the north, south and west to topple President Saddam Hussein.

Thousands of marines and soldiers are envisioned to invade Iraq probably from Kuwait, the Times said, adding, "Hundreds of warplanes based in as many as eight countries, possibly including Turkey and Qatar, would unleash a huge air assault against thousands of targets, including airfields, roadways and fiber-optics communications sites.”

Special operations troops or CIA agents would strike at depots or laboratories storing or making suspected weapons of mass destruction and the missiles that launch them.

The Times said, however, none of the countries identified in the document as possible staging areas have been consulted. Saudi Arabia’s name is conspicuously absent.

Reports of a U.S. strike against Iraq have persisted since President Bush started the war on terrorism following Sept. 11, but U.S. allies in the Middle East and some in Europe have been reluctant to oust Saddam. Iraq is currently engaged in talks with the United Nations on the possible return of weapons’ inspectors to the country.

According to the Times, Bush has been briefed at least twice by Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of the Central Command, on the broad outlines for a possible attack against Iraq.

Conceptual Thinking

"Right now, we're at the stage of conceptual thinking and brainstorming," a senior defense official was quoted as saying. "We're pretty far along."

The document, "CentCom Courses of Action," which the Times said was "highly classified” was prepared by planners at Centcom in Tampa, Fla.

The Times said that neither Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld nor Franks had been briefed on the document as yet.

The Times’ source expressed frustration that the planning reflected in the document’s briefing slides was insufficiently creative, and had failed to incorporate fully the advances that the military has made since the 1991 Persian Gulf war against Iraq.

The Times said, however, there were no indications an attack on Baghdad was imminent. Any military offensive would be delayed until early next year, it quoted officials as saying.

The report said thousands of marines from the First Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif., which is the marine unit designated for the Persian Gulf, have stepped up mock assault drills. It also said the military was beefing up bases in several Arab states, including Qatar.

The Pentagon has stepped up production of critical munitions, which ran dangerously low during the war in Afghanistan, and the Air Force was stockpiling weapons, ammunition and spare parts.

The document also describes specific Iraqi bases, surface-to-air missile sites, air defense networks and fiber-optics communications to be regarded as targets.

Several slides were devoted to the tonnage of American munitions stored in the Persian Gulf, deployment timelines for troops leaving East and West Coast ports for the Gulf, and the complexities of interwoven intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance networks.

But, the Times’ cited its source as saying the document was silent or barely mentioned "other important aspects of any operation, suggesting that there are several highly classified documents that address different parts of the planning.”

"For instance, the ‘Courses of Action’ document does not mention other coalition forces, casualty estimates, how [Saddam] may himself be a target, or what political regime might follow the Iraqi leader if an American-led attack was successful.”

Copyright 2002 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

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