800 missiles to hit Iraq in first 48 hours
By Andrew West and agencies
January 26 2003
The US intends to shatter Iraq "physically, emotionally and psychologically" by raining down on its people as many as 800 cruise missiles in two days.
The Pentagon battle plan aims not only to crush Iraqi troops, but also wipe out power and water supplies in the capital, Baghdad.
It is based on a strategy known as "Shock and Awe", conceived at the National Defense University in Washington, in which between 300 and 400 cruise missiles would fall on Iraq each day for two consecutive days. It would be more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of the 1991 GulfWar.
"There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," a Pentagon official told America's CBS News after a briefing on the plan. "The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before."
The plan has emerged just as American diplomats at the United Nations hinted that the US Administration might be willing to give UN weapons inspectors another month to complete their task.
Chief inspector Hans Blix is due to report back to the UN on Tuesday.
President George Bush has been displaying increasing impatience with the pace of inspections and is eager to start the bombing. But according to UN sources he has resigned himself to the fact that the US lacks enough votes on the Security Council to wage a military campaign.
Mr Bush's belligerence yesterday found a match in comments by Uday Hussein. In a rare public appearance, the son of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein said the consequences of American attack on his country would make the September 11, 2001, terrorist strike look like a picnic.
He warned: "If they come, September 11, which they are crying over and see as a big thing, will be a real picnic for them, God willing.
"They will be hurt and pay a price they will never imagine. They can get much more from Iraq without resorting to the logic of force and war."
According to the architect of "Shock and Awe", military strategist Harlan Ullman, the plan would rely on an extensive array of precision-guided weapons.
"We want them to quit, not to fight," Ullman said, "so that you have this simultaneous effect - rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima - not taking days or weeks but minutes."
The main objective was not just to disable Iraq's fighting capacity but to leave the population dispirited and unwilling to support Saddam's regime.
"You're sitting in Baghdad and, all of a sudden, you're the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out," Mr Ullman said. "You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power and water. In two, three, four, five days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted."
The American war plans will cause even greater angst in Europe, where the French and Russian governments, reflecting wider international fears, are threatening to veto any US rush to military action.
French President Jacques Chirac and Russia's Vladimir Putin have agreed "their positions [on a US strike] are very close", a French spokeswoman said. Both countries are permanent members of the UN Security Council, and either could veto any UN approval of an American attack.
Mr Putin has also co-opted German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder into supporting a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Iraq. Germany is now the major power in Europe and the Chancellor's reluctance, if not outright refusal, to endorse a unilateral US strike would be a major setback to the Bush Administration.
The dossier by Dr Blix, and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei, is expected to report that Iraqi
co-operation with inspectors has been "satisfactory" and they could find no "smoking gun", no evidence that could be used a pretext for war.
But the pair will also say Iraq could offer even greater co-operation in the search for nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or materials that could be used in their construction, within its borders.
But America's increasingly aggressive stance is isolating opinion around the world. Late on Friday, his Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld drove a wedge further into US-European relations when he dismissed Germany and France as representing "old Europe".
He comments drew a sharp rebuke from the foreign ministers of both countries.
If the US wants UN approval for any strike it will have to wring votes out of the 15 Security Council members. At the moment, it can count only on the solid support of Britain, the likely support of Spain and Bulgaria, and the possible support of Guinea and Cameroon.
China, France, Russia, Germany and Syria were most opposed and likely to influence Angola, Chile, Mexico and Pakistan.
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/25/1042911596206.html
