IRAQ: The Pentagon's strategy for military action against Iraq is an open secret in the capital, where local people are taking precautions, writes Michael Jansen in Baghdad
Senior Iraqi officials and many ordinary citizens are well briefed on the Pentagon's proposed strategy for a military campaign against Iraq. They have been able to access this information in the Western press via the Internet and have been given further details by visiting human rights teams.
The campaign, code-named "Shock and Awe", is expected to begin with an assault on the capital and its environs with newly developed "high-power microwave" weapons devised to knock out electricity installations, communications and electronic equipment.
Some 300-400 Cruise missiles would target Baghdad daily for at least a week, averaging one missile attack on the city every five minutes.
Other weapons listed in a report released last week in Baghdad by the New York-based Centre for Economic and Social Rights would include precision-guided missiles fired from aircraft, area-impact munitions, such as cluster bombs, fuel-air explosives and multiple rockets. Some of the munitions are likely to carry warheads tipped with depleted uranium. The use of nuclear weapons has not been ruled out by the US.
During this phase, ground forces would seize control of Iraq's northern and southern oil fields and seal the country's frontiers to prevent Iraqis from seeking refuge in neighbouring countries.
As the code name for the operation indicates, the aim of this massive onslaught on the capital is to force the Iraqi armed forces to capitulate without mounting serious resistance which could cost the lives of the invading forces.
Iraq's defensive strategy is said to involve the concentration of troops in and around the capital and other major cities. Since the Iraqi armed forces do not rely on civilian power and communications networks, it is believed that less sophisticated command and control could survive the onset of the war.
However, no one knows how the Iraqi military will react. The assertion on Saturday by Iraq's Vice President, Mr Taha Yassin Ramadan, that "suicide martyrs" would defend the country clearly reflects this uncertainty.
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tariq Aziz, and other senior officials have repeatedly made the point that civilians in some neighbourhoods have been armed and are prepared to defend Baghdad in house-to-house fighting. However this assertion has not been independently confirmed.
If there is sustained and serious resistance to US and British ground forces in the capital, Western diplomats report that bombing would be intensified and the invading forces could resort to the use of armoured bulldozers to clear wide swaths of territory for the entry of tanks and armoured troop carriers.
(This would be hardly necessary because Baghdad is a city of broad boulevards and fine avenues and the closely built poor areas, where it is claimed armed civilians are prepared to resist, could be sealed off without engagement.)
No one here expects the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, to agree to abdicate. Assassinating him would be very difficult because he surrounds himself with close loyal associates who would lose everything if they were to abandon him.
He also has a number of doubles who could be deployed as decoys while he searches for a means of escape.
While a great many Iraqis would be glad if Mr Saddam were to be overthrown, the majority fear that toppling his government would bring chaos and anarchy. Several people who do not like him told The Irish Times that he was the only man capable of holding the country together and imposing order.
Some wealthy Iraqis have recruited armed guards for their households, others have installed bars on windows and doors, fearing that the impoverished mass of the populace will loot the more prosperous neighbourhoods
Mr Ahmad Chalebi, the head of the US-backed external opposition, has no credibility inside Iraq and would be in no position to take power. An Iraqi historian from a distinguished family remarked: "Chalebi is a Shia. Iraq has always been ruled by Sunnis. Even the chiefs of Shia tribes are Sunnis."
This is a reference to the fact that ever since 750 AD, when Baghdad became the capital of the Islamic world, it has been understood by both Sunnis and Shias in this area that the Sunni Orthodox would rule rather than the Shia heterodox.
In contrast to the countries which neighbour Iraq, security is light and lax in Baghdad. There is no sign of a military build-up and no censorship of dispatches of the hundreds of foreign correspondents in the city. The only armed soldiers I saw during my two weeks there stood in front of the UN Development Programme office on Abu Nawas Street to keep the daily demonstration of various professional associations in order.