U.S. drafting 3-front attack against Iraq
iht.com
Eric Schmitt The New York Times
Saturday, July 6, 2002
Plan entails 250,000 troops and invasion from
Kuwait
WASHINGTON An American military planning
document calls for air, land and sea-based forces
to attack Iraq from three directions - the north,
south and west - in a campaign to topple
President Saddam Hussein, according to a person
familiar with the document.
The document envisions tens of thousands of
Marines and soldiers probably invading from
Kuwait. 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, roads
and fiber-optics communications sites.
Special forces or covert CIA operatives would strike
at depots or laboratories storing or manufacturing
Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction and
the missiles to launch them. None of the countries
identified in the document as possible staging
areas have been formally consulted about playing
such a role, officials said, underscoring the
preliminary nature of the planning.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited U.S.
bases in Kuwait and Qatar and the 5th Fleet in
Bahrain on his most recent trip to the Gulf region
in June.
The existence of the document that outlined
significant aspects of a "concept" for a war against
Iraq as it stood about two months ago indicates an
advanced state of planning in the military even
though President George W. Bush continues to
state in public and to U.S. allies that he has no
fine-grain war plan on his desk for the invasion of
Iraq.
But the concept for such a plan is now highly
evolved and is apparently working its way through
military channels. Once a consensus is reached
on the concept, the steps toward assembling a
final war plan and, most importantly, the element
of timing for ground deployments and
commencement of an air war represent the final
sequencing that Bush will have to decide.
The Central Command document does not contain
a time line of when U.S. forces could start flowing
to the Gulf or how long it would take to put all the
forces in place. Nor does it answer one of the big
questions administration officials are wrestling
with: How will Saddam react if there is a large
buildup of conventional forces, such as the United
States had in the Gulf War?
"The Iraqis aren't just going to sit on their butts
while we put in 250,000 people," a military
analyst said.
Bush has received at least two briefings from
General Tommy Franks, the head of the Central
Command, on the broad outlines, or "concept of
operations," for a possible attack against Iraq. The
most recent briefing was June 19, according to
the White House.
"Right now, we're at the stage of conceptual
thinking and brainstorming," a senior defense
official said. "We're pretty far along."
The highly classified document, "CentCom
Courses of Action," was prepared by planners at
the Central Command in Tampa, Florida,
according to the person familiar with the
document.
Officials say it has already undergone revisions
but is a snapshot of an important, but preliminary
stage, in a comprehensive process that translates
broad ideas into the detailed, step-by-step
blueprint for combat operations that the Pentagon
defines as a "war plan."
Still, the document, compiled in a long set of
briefing slides, offers a rare glimpse into the inner
sanctum of the war planners assigned to think
about options for defeating Iraq.
"It is the responsibility of the Department of
Defense to develop contingency plans and, from
time to time, to update them," said Victoria
Clarke, the Pentagon spokeswoman. "In fact, we
have recently issued new general planning
guidance, and that generates activity at the staff
level."
Officials said neither Rumsfeld, nor the Joint
Chiefs of Staff or Franks had been briefed on this
specific document as yet.
The source familiar with the document described
its contents to The New York Times on condition of
anonymity, expressing frustration that the
planning reflected at least in this set of briefing
slides was insufficiently creative and failed to
incorporate fully the advances in tactics and
technology that the military has made since the
Gulf War in 1991.
Administration officials say they are still weighing
options other than war to dislodge Saddam. But
most military and administration officials believe
that a coup in Iraq would be unlikely to succeed
and that a proxy battle using local forces would
not be enough to drive the Iraqi leader from
power.
Nothing in the Central Command document or in
interviews with senior military officials suggests
that an attack on Iraq is imminent. Indeed, senior
administration officials continue to say that any
offensive would probably be delayed until early
next year, allowing time to create the right
military, economic and diplomatic conditions.
Nonetheless, there are several signs that the
military is preparing for a major air campaign and
land invasion.
Thousands of Marines from the 1st Marine
Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton,
California, the unit designated for the Gulf, have
stepped up their mock assault drills, a Pentagon
adviser said. The military is building up bases in
several Gulf states, including a major airfield in
Qatar called Al Udeid. Thousands of U.S. troops
are already stationed in the region.
After running dangerously low on
precision-guided bombs during the war in
Afghanistan, the Pentagon has said it has stepped
up production of critical munitions. The air force
is stockpiling weapons, ammunition and spare
parts at depots in the United States and in the
Middle East.
"We don't know when or where the next
contingency will be," General Lester Lyles, head of
the Air Force Matériel Command, said in an
interview this week. "But we want to fill up the
stock bins."
The Central Command document, as described by
the source familiar with it, is significant not just
for what it contains, but also for what it leaves out.
The document describes in precise detail specific
Iraqi bases, surface-to-air missile sites, air defense
networks and fiber-optics communications to be
attacked.
"The target list is so huge it's almost egregious,"
the source said. "It's obvious that we've been
watching these guys for an awfully long time."
Dozens of slides are devoted to organizational
details, like the precise tonnage of American
munitions stored at various bases around the
Gulf, deployment time lines for troops leaving East
and West Coast ports for the Gulf region and the
complexities of interwoven intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance networks.
The 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 a U.S.-led attack was
successful, the source said.
It describes the number of Marine and army
divisions, air expeditionary forces, and aircraft
carriers. These and other forces add up to as many
as 250,000 troops, the source familiar with the
document said, but there is little detail about
those forces beyond that. |
