Rapid attack, fierce invasion will target Iraq
Precise strategy demanded for battle
By Dave Moniz / USA TODAY
John Moore / Associated Press
U.S. troops wear gas masks during a scud missile drill at Camp Arifjan, a main U.S. military base south of Kuwait City.
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WASHINGTON -- Sometime in the next month, Saddam Hussein and his most loyal lieutenants are likely to hear the first chilling sounds of war: the distinctive clicks and whooshing noises smart bombs make as their steering fins make last-second adjustments to put them on target.
An unrelenting volley of satellite- and laser-guided bombs, falling in concert with hundreds of cruise missiles launched from U.S. Navy ships, will blast into military headquarters and the barracks of Saddam's elite troops in and around Baghdad.
At the same time, the lights will go out -- literally -- for military commanders and Saddam's security forces, whose radios, telephones and computers will be zapped by powerful new weapons known as e-bombs. These bombs use electromagnetic energy to generate crippling power surges.
What follows the barrage of several thousand smart weapons will be the kind of war the war has not seen before: a rapid, violent invasion whose goals aren't to seize territory or destroy a large army. Instead, if all goes according to plan, U.S. forces will attempt to kill anyone keeping Saddam in power while leaving Iraq's regular military, its civilians and most cities and towns untouched. Full: http://www.detnews.com/2003/nation/0302/23/a04-92055.htm --- Sent from UnionMail Service [http://mail.union.org.za]