Boston Globe February 16, 2003
This time, US readies a lightning strike in Gulf
By Bryan Bender, Globe Correspondent
WASHINGTON -- Gulf War II is shaping up to be quite different from the Operation Desert Storm of a dozen years ago.
Then, the United States led a broad coalition of military forces to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait but stopped short of driving Saddam Hussein from power.
This time, Washington is largely on its own. And the battle plan is bolder, faster -- and significantly riskier, according to analysts and military officers, including veterans of the first Gulf War.
In a coordinated air, land, and sea attack, US and other forces plan to unleash nearly all elements of their power simultaneously. The goal, specialists say, is to topple within days a leadership armed with poison gas and biological weapons.
In the early hours, combat jets and bombers loaded with a new generation of smart weapons will catapult from aircraft carriers and take off from land bases to strike Iraqi air defenses and command and control centers. Other aircraft will seek out suspected weapons of mass destruction facilities. Helicopter-borne Army and Marine Corps forces will advance deep inside Iraq on as many as three fronts to secure oil fields, occupy air strips, and ferret out stocks of chemical or biological weapons before they can be unleashed.
If all goes according to plan -- and there's no assurance that it will -- formations of tanks and armored vehicles and infantry units will race for Baghdad, skirting or overpowering Iraqi Army resistance. Unlike the relentless ground advances of the Gulf War, this time, whenever possible, US forces will speed past Iraqi units to what Washington says is the ultimate prize: the leadership of Iraq's Baath party regime.
The United States will concentrate less than in 1991 on destroying regular military units, many of which are expected to stay out of the fray, the sources say. The military said it will also try to avoid the widespread destruction of Iraqi infrastructure, which will need to be rebuilt after the war.
Instead, US war planners are aiming to disarm potentially catastrophic Iraqi weapons, to seize key cities, and to neutralize the instruments and centers of power, including the elite Republican Guard and Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The specialists call this the ''Baghdad first,'' or ''inside-out,'' approach, billed as a lightning-paced assault that the Pentagon hopes will daze Iraq into quick submission.
But as 200,000 US troops, perhaps aided by British and Australian forces, mass around Iraq for a war that could begin in a few weeks, there is no guarantee of a swift and clean victory.
Some characteristics of the potential campaign portend a repeat of 12 years ago. The US military is more technologically adept now than ever, far more so than reflected by the enduring war images of 1991. The Iraqi military is a shell of its former self, with widespread disaffection among the ranks. US military intelligence has a clearer understanding of potential opposition. Most of all, the time and place of hostilities will be decided not by Iraq but by the United States.
Still, big challenges confront military planners. Two possible scenarios are paramount:
Saddam Hussein, perceiving his downfall, might order commanders to retaliate against invading troops with chemical or biological weapons. US troops would become engaged in street fighting in Baghdad, a city of 5 million that is likely to be the best defended and most prepared for the onslaught. Both scenarios probably would result in a high number of US casualties and Iraqi civilian deaths, perhaps in the tens of thousands.
''It's far more challenging, because in essence we will be attacking the whole country instead of a small province,'' said retired General Daniel Christman of the Army, president of the Kimsey Foundation in Washington. Christman was the Army's chief war planner in 1991.
General Thomas Rhame, another top retired Army officer, commanded the First Infantry Division in Operation Desert Storm and participated in the ''left hook'' maneuver that spelled the beginning of the end of Iraqi resistance.
''The end state is the concern,'' said Rhame, who hosted the talks that ended the first Gulf hostilities. ''While the objective in the Gulf War was to cut off the Iraqi Army and eject it from occupied Kuwait, this time you're going to reach an end of hostilities in Tikrit or Baghdad.''
Gleaned from interviews with senior military officials familiar with the Pentagon's planning is a battle plan embodying the key theme of post-Cold War US military strategy: shock warfare achieved through a combination of intensity and the destruction of strategically important targets, rather than a more traditional approach of taking out opposing forces piecemeal and then moving to major targets. In Pentagon parlance, it is called ''rapid, decisive operations.''
In the skies, US and other coalition pilots are preparing for a powerful yet selective campaign. Air Force and Navy aircraft will concentrate on destroying Iraq's ability to threaten allied aircraft and helicopters in the first days of the war by taking out air defenses and command centers. And perhaps most importantly, US planes will try to neutralize chemical and biological weapons sites -- a tactic that itself bears risks if dangerous materials are dispersed in the process.
''The operational campaign plan is to ensure what targets you have on weapons sites are taken down,'' Christman said. ''You can't wait two or three weeks.''
''We were able to deter'' Hussein from using weapons of mass destruction in the Gulf War, he said. ''In this case everybody expects he is going to use the stuff.''
The US Central Command, in another departure from 1991, will try to avoid blowing up roads, bridges, dams, and electricity grids to avoid civilian casualties and hardship, analysts said. When the costly process of rebuilding begins, international organizations will have more to work with, the military officials said. Aircraft carriers are expected to play a larger role than in Operation Desert Storm. Lacking a large international coalition, and facing hesitancy in neighboring countries about hosting combat planes, Central Command will rely on up to five carriers packed with aircraft to unleash munitions, while providing air cover for Army and Marine ground units, military officials said.
Operating from the Mediteranean Sea, Persian Gulf, and northern Arabian Sea, the floating air fields can ''hit a lot more aimpoints in a 24-hour period'' than the six aircraft carriers deployed during the first Gulf War, said a senior officer who asked not to be named.
This is because of a combination of new weapons and communications links. The Cold War-era F-14 Tomcat, for example, can now launch precision-guided cruise missiles and strike ground targets instead of being suited only for dogfights.
''Navy air power will be a greater portion of the whole this time,'' said a senior military official. He predicted that the carriers would stay out of the Red Sea -- where three operated during the Gulf War -- for fear that the limits of that waterway would cramp their movements and that overflights of Saudi Arabia would be politically unacceptable.
The Navy and Air Force will operate with hundreds of upgraded planes based in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey, and on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, and will have dozens of surface ships and submarines to launch improved cruise missiles.
The goal is ''to make it impossible for military leaders to operate in a wartime environment,'' said Patrick Garrett of GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, Va.
The ground war will also have clear differences. Ground forces will not wait for air forces to soften up the opposition before making a foray into Iraqi territory. Light, computerized Army and Marine Corps units with chemical and biological protection gear will see action in Iraq right from the start, according to the military sources and analysts. From Turkey, units such as the First Infantry Division, Fourth Infantry Division and possibly the 82nd Airborne Division will move on oil fields near Mosul and the key objective of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, officials said. Other key objectives will include installations in western Iraq where Iraqi missiles could threaten Israel or other countries.
In the south, units such as the 101st Airborne Division, the Third Infantry Division, the Third Mechanized Division, and the First Marine Division, staging from Kuwait, will seize oil fields near Basra and move against any Iraqi Army forces standing between them and Baghdad. Intelligence officials have said there are signs that Iraq has moved some units toward the Kuwaiti border.
A third, smaller prong of a ground offensive could come from Jordan, some analysts say.
There are many unknowns. These may include Hussein's willingness to torch oil fields, his potential use of human shields, and the possibility that he could destroy dams, bridges, and food supplies to create a humanitarian crisis for which Washington would be blamed.''The Gulf War was a defensive move. This is offensive,'' said retired general Gus Pagonis, who commanded the Army Seventh Corps' 22nd Support Command in the first Gulf War. ''This conflict is totally different. It's like apples and oranges. They are both in the fruit bowl, but are very different.'' Much of the strategy's success can already be determined. According to Christman, a significant change is the capacity of US special forces, who are laying the groundwork in Iraq, setting up communications, gathering intelligence, enticing defectors, and locating missile and toxic-weapon threats.
''Special ops is not bigger, but it's better,'' Christman said. ''And they have a much better relationship with the operations side of the CIA. And it's not difficult to guess who their target is.''
Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.
Copyright © 2003, Globe Newspaper Company.
