http://www.www.wsj.com/

July 15, 2002
AFTERMATH OF TERROR
Problems With Iraq-Invasion Plans Push U.S. to Weigh a New Strategy

By GREG JAFFE, Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON -- Problems with two strategies the U.S. is considering to oust Saddam Hussein by force are driving some military planners to a new option -- a middle ground between a small-scale campaign employing air strikes and local-opposition forces, and an overwhelming invasion of troops.

Some Bush administration aides -- particularly some civilians in the Pentagon and the White House -- have argued that the job in Iraq could be accomplished with air strikes backed by several hundred special-operations soldiers, working in conjunction with Iraqi opposition forces and defectors. Senior military officials, meanwhile, have been arguing that ousting Mr. Hussein requires a more conventional 250,000-troop mobilization.

A middle-ground approach would marry air power with a force of between 50,000 and 75,000 ground troops, said a defense official involved in Iraq planning.

Military officials and defense experts said the Pentagon could likely assemble such a force in Kuwait in about two weeks. Those troops could be flown into the region and roll into battle with prepositioned tanks and other armored vehicles stored in countries such as Qatar and Kuwait, and on the Indian Ocean Island of Diego Garcia. The numbers also would include at least 25,000 light-infantry troops who can be deployed with their equipment by air.

How to Topple Saddam?
A look at three invasion options being debated within the Bush administration, and their drawbacks:

* Desert Storm Lite: Large ground force. Hundreds of war planes launched from carriers and regional air bases. Cons: Mustering 250,000 troops would take three months. Antsy Arab allies might object. Sadam Hussein would likely make a preemptive attack.

* Indigenous Forces: Relies on air power launched from bases and carriers. As in Afghanistan, Special Operations troops would work with opposition forces to direct air strikes. Cons: Unlike Afghanistan there is no large, organized opposition force in Iraq.

* The Middle Ground: 50,000-75,000 troop force backed by air power.
Buildup only takes two weeks. Cons: Small force increases risk of failure, wouldn't hold Iraq's ethnic factions together or secure chemical, biological weapons sites without help.

The troops would be backed by as much air power as the military could muster, launched from bases throughout the region in such places as Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and from as many as five aircraft carriers. Access to Saudi Arabian air space and to Saudi airfields for refueling, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft also would be important.

Special operations forces, Central Intelligence Agency operatives and opposition forces would still be used to encourage defections, and to coordinate air strikes against mobile Scud missiles and chemical and biological weapons labs.

There isn't yet any administration decision to move militarily. Any overt action to topple the Iraqi leader still would likely be at least several months off. Still, the internal debate over potential tactics appears to have advanced in recent weeks.

But as the debate has picked up, flaws in the two more extreme plans are attracting more concern. Senior administration officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, are doubtful that Mr. Hussein could be toppled with only hundreds of special-operations troops, air power and local opposition forces, in the manner of the military campaign in Afghanistan. Mr. Hussein's grip on power is too tight and the opposition forces don't seem capable of working together, these officials fear.

About 70 major opposition leaders gathered in London over the weekend to talk about what a post-Saddam government might look like, but defense officials say the meeting has taken weeks to organize amid the opposition group's bickering. "The opposition forces right now are just a disaster," said a defense official who has been working with opposition groups in the U.S. and Europe.

Meanwhile, it is considered unlikely that Mr. Hussein would allow U.S. forces the luxury of the three-month military buildup that a 250,000-troop invasion would require without a pre-emptive attack. It also would be difficult for the U.S.'s Arab allies, whose airfields and other infrastructure will be critical to such an effort, to hold steady during a three-month buildup and then a war -- especially if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which inflames anti-American sentiment in the Arab world, is still roiling.

Those problems are strengthening the case for another course. No plans for an invasion using a force of 50,000 to 75,000 ground troops yet exist. Outlines of how a war in Iraq would be conducted have been prepared by the military's Central Command, which oversees troops in the Middle East and Central Asia. They still assume the U.S. would move forward with a force of about 250,000 troops. Gen. Tommy Franks, Centcom's commander, briefed President Bush in June on that war plan, dubbed "Desert Storm-lite" within the military, after the code name for the operation that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

It is also unclear how Gen. Franks would feel about advancing on Iraq with a force of fewer than 75,000 troops. Such a force would be a fraction of the 500,000 troops that the U.S. mustered to fight in the Persian Gulf 10 years ago. But backers of a small war plan argue that significant advances in precision munitions, and the U.S. military's ability to gather intelligence and distribute it throughout the battlefield, have radically changed warfare.

During the Gulf War, it took days to arrange strikes against targets using precision munitions. The biggest source of the delay was simply moving information, such as satellite photos or target lists, which had to be transported by hand around the battlefield. Today, information from some surveillance planes, such as the JSTARS, which track moving vehicles, can be beamed directly to the cockpits of fighter jets. Unmanned surveillance planes, such as the Global Hawk and the Predator, can send video of the battlefield almost instantly to command centers, which are in constant contact with bombers armed with precision bombs that are circling the battlefield.

Instead of taking days to strike a target after it is spotted by a battlefield sensor, the military can now strike in as little as 20 minutes. "The smaller force should be sufficient because the U.S. military is an order of magnitude better than it was ten years ago," said Daniel Goure, a senior analyst at the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va., defense think tank. Meanwhile, the Iraqi military, which has suffered through a decade of sanctions, is "an order of magnitude worse," he said.

The outline for a large-scale invasion of Iraq involving 250,000 troops was first developed in 1998 by U.S. Central Command, which was then under the leadership of Gen. Anthony Zinni. "It was our belief that to go all the way to Baghdad, topple Saddam and stabilize the country it would require between 200,000 to 300,000 troops," said one former Central Command official, who was involved in the planning at the time.

Most of those troops, however, weren't seen as essential to the actual fighting, but rather to holding the country together after Mr. Hussein fell, this official said. Gen. Zinni and other senior Central Command officials never felt the military part was very difficult, said another former Central Command official. Rather, he argued that the largest portion of ground troops would be needed for two missions: to prevent Iraq, a country beset by severe ethnic divisions, from disintegrating into complete chaos; and securing Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons stores.

The general often compared the aftermath of a U.S. war in Iraq to a dog chasing after a car, said former Central Command officials. The most challenging part for the dog, Gen. Zinni mused, is figuring out "what to do with it once it catches it."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Return to article index