Opening with A Bang

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Because of the dangers Saddam could unleash, U.S. troops would try to neutralize him before he could do any harm. That means American troops--and lots of them--would have to get to work on Iraqi soil straight away. Their goals would be to prevent Saddam from firing his Scud missiles at Israel (as he did in the first Gulf War), to stop him from sabotaging his nation's future by destroying its oil wells (as he did Kuwait's in the first Gulf War) and to keep him from using his biological and chemical weapons (the Pentagon's biggest fear).

While Iraq has grudgingly detailed for the U.N. where it worked on biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in the past, it maintains that it no longer possesses or produces them. Senior U.S. officers believe that once Saddam was on the run, most Iraqis would be glad to lead U.S. soldiers to any such contraband. U.S. special-operations forces would seize some suspected weapons sites. Others would be blown up, if it was safe to do so. Just to be sure, the Pentagon might employ "e-bombs," which generate a massive electrical pulse, to destroy the electronics needed to deploy such weapons.

ON THE GROUND The U.S. push from Kuwait--perhaps 100,000 troops strong, led by the 3rd Infantry Division--would probably begin before the smoke of the first JDAMS had cleared. Hundreds of M-1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles would lead the 300-mile thrust to Baghdad, accompanied by U.S. Marines and British units. The troops would be protected by AH-64D helicopter gunships--basically flying tanks--whose new radars and missiles make them far deadlier than the AH-64A's used in the first Gulf War. Smaller U.S. units would pour into Iraq from Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Until Turkish parliamentarians nixed the plan for the U.S. to use their country as a launching pad, a 60,000-strong American force led by the 4th Infantry Division was to push south from bases inside Turkey. Now a smaller force, led by the 101st Airborne Division, might be tapped for the job. The plan is to airlift that force from Kuwait into Kurdish air strips in northern Iraq that are being prepared by U.S. forces. Once secured, C-17 cargo planes could carry tanks and other armor deep inside Iraq. The Pentagon believes that attacking Saddam from more than one direction--a third force could approach Baghdad from the west--is vital to keeping the war short, casualties down and bomb damage minimal.

But there could be potholes on the road to Baghdad. The Pentagon wants the attacks to be fast and widespread enough to shock the Iraqi military but powerful enough so that the Iraqis can't shrug them off and regroup to fight the following day. U.S. troops plunging into Iraq would have to be nimble enough to move swiftly but with sufficient ammo and fuel to keep fighting deep inside Iraq until reinforcements arrived. Another concern: some in the U.S. military are as worried about American soldiers as they are about the enemy. Friendly fire, which accounted for 35 of 148 U.S. deaths in the first Gulf War, could be a bigger problem this time because the air and ground campaigns would coincide.