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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PROLIFE who wrote (29972)	11/10/2002 5:02:06 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

War Plan in Iraq Sees Large Force and Quick Strikes By THE NEW YORK TIMES URL:http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/international/middleeast/10MILI.html This article was reported and written by David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker. WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — President Bush has settled on a war plan for Iraq that would begin with an air campaign shorter than the one for the Persian Gulf war, senior administration officials say. It would feature swift ground actions to seize footholds in the country and strikes to cut off the leadership in Baghdad. It’s time to put all of your photos onto your computer Natural de-icer means you’ll have to shovel less this winter The plan, approved in recent weeks by Mr. Bush well before the Security Council's unanimous vote on Friday to disarm Iraq, calls for massing 200,000 to 250,000 troops for attack by air, land and sea. The offensive would probably begin with a "rolling start" of substantially fewer forces, Pentagon and military officials say. Mr. Bush, speaking at a news conference on Thursday, did not discuss the secret process for planning a possible war, but he noted that if military action was required to compel Iraq to disarm, the United States and its allies would "move swiftly with force to do the job." He repeated his determination today, saying in his weekly radio address that "Iraq can be certain that the old game of cheat-and-retreat, tolerated at other times, will no longer be tolerated." The military plan calls for the quick capture of land within Iraq, which would be used as bases to funnel American forces deeper into the country. That approach is intended to relieve some of the diplomatic pressure created by massing troops and initiating attacks from neighboring nations, including Saudi Arabia. Under the plan, United States and coalition forces could operate out of such forward bases in northern, western and southern Iraq, building on lessons learned in Afghanistan, where the military seized a similar outpost south of Kandahar. As the Pentagon puts the finishing touches on a plan of attack, White House and State Department officials are discussing what one senior official called a "seamless transition" from attack to a military occupation of parts of the country. It would include efforts to deliver food to Iraqis and to engage them quickly in planning for economic development and eventual democracy in areas that President Saddam Hussein has terrorized. Meanwhile, Iraqi scientists and local military officials would be encouraged to reveal the location of hidden stores of weapons of mass destruction, a process Mr. Bush publicly encouraged from the Rose Garden on Friday when he told Iraqis that "by helping the process of disarmament, they help their country." One senior official, drawing on comparisons with the American occupation of Japan in 1945, said, "Our message will be that the faster we find the weapons and arrest Saddam's guys, the faster they get some normalcy." Mr. Bush, after several war-planning meetings with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of American forces in the gulf, has decided that military action in Iraq would be carried out with the large troop levels that General Franks has consistently advocated. Even so, Mr. Bush can still maintain the formal position that no decision has been reached because he has not yet ordered the nation to war. Even as the United Nations weapons inspectors prepare to fly to Iraq, the American military is moving into a new phase of positioning logistical forces that military officials say are significant indicators of a movement toward war. The Army is loading tugboats, forklifts and other cargo-handling equipment onto the Tern, a giant cargo ship in Hampton Roads, Va., that is bound for the gulf to prepare ports for the arrival of tanks and other armored equipment. But the orders to send those heavy ground forces have not been given. "We have a lot of things teed up to go if the big guys decide to send it," said one senior Defense Department official. "But no green lights yet." Pentagon officials had been awaiting language from the Security Council because the timetable for the inspection process will shape the schedule of troop deployments and, ultimately, the start of any offensive that Mr. Bush may order.