IRAQ: As several thousand US marines and army ground forces pour into Kuwait in a military build-up for a possible assault on Iraq, the US has begun a psychological war urging senior Iraqi officers to defect and to disobey orders to use weapons of mass destruction.
The target of a US military attack on Iraq would be Saddam Hussein's "power base", rather than the country's civilian infrastructure, the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, said yesterday during a visit to Poland for talks with NATO members.
Mr Rumsfeld's comment about the broad aims of a war against Iraq suggest that US military strategy will be much different that the 1991 Gulf War.
The goal of the US-led international force then was to drive Baghdad forces from Kuwait rather than to overthrow the Iraqi leader.
This time any war will be aimed at what US officials call "regime change", which US officers fear could drive the Iraqi leadership to desperate measures. The new goal has put psychological warfare at the heart of US military preparations for the initial stages of a conflict. US planners have prepared more extensive psychological operations, or "psyops" than in any previous conflicts, according to leaks from the Pentagon.
The principle aim is to persuade Iraqi military commanders to disobey orders to use chemical or biological weapons under their command in a conflict with US-led troops. The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, told Congress last week that the US appeal to Iraqi military officers has already begun. He did not give details.
"Psyops" would however involve contacting key officers through clandestine intermediaries or even e-mail, according to reports. At the same time US experts would hack into Iraqi military computers, drop leaflets on military bases, jam Iraqi radio and television, and substitute signals from US broadcasting aircraft.
Mr Rumsfeld said that faced with US warnings that they could be treated as war criminals, Iraqi military officers might refuse orders to launch weapons of mass destruction. If Saddam Hussein were to issue such an order that did not necessarily mean his orders would be carried out, the Defence Secretary told the House Armed Services Committee last week.
Internal critics of the Pentagon's "psyops" operation say it may not be possible to reach the commanders in control of Iraq's most potent weapons, and that US intelligence is not even sure whether Iraq has such weapons.
The psychological war plan is reported to be a major component of the Pentagon's overall strategy for war with Iraq, which US officials confirmed last weekend has been submitted to President George Bush.
The Pentagon has begun inoculating selected troops against anthrax, according to Gen Richard Meyers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The weapons US officials fear most are mustard gas, nerve gas and biological toxins like anthrax or botulinum.
Underlining the different nature of a second Iraq war, elite US special operations troops have been instructed to separate from the military to join CIA units for a campaign against Iraq, according to yesterday's New York Times. Special operations forces have become prominent in US war planning since playing a decisive role in Afghanistan. A number of US agents have flown in and out of the Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq recently to co-ordinate with opposition groups there, a senior US official said.
In other preparations for war, several thousand marines and army personnel are being deployed in Kuwait along with heavy armour to supplement a force of 9,000 already there.
Some 25,000 US military personnel are already in the region, most in units permanently based there since the 1991 war.
The US navy has ordered three aircraft carrier battle groups off the west coast of the US to prepare to go to the Persian Gulf on short notice. Another carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, has just arrived in the Gulf with an attendant battle group of nine ships and 70 aircraft.
The US has about 6,000 personnel in Saudi Arabia, 4,200 in Bahrain, 3,300 in Qatar, 2,400 in Oman, 500 in the United Arab Emirates, 1,700 in Turkey and 1,900 in Diego Garcia.