Instead of invading Iraq by land from Kuwait and other surrounding countries, the US military is considering a radically new approach, labelled "inside-out". This would involve invading Baghdad and a few key bases and arms depots by airborne assault in the hope of quickly toppling the centralised regime of President Saddam Hussein.
The approach, revealed yesterday by the New York Times, is said to have particular appeal to those alarmed by estimates by the Joint Chiefs that a classic invasion could require some 250,000 troops. The inside-out approach, the paper says, could involve as few as a quarter of that number actually inside Iraq.
But the paper's report, which admits that "no formal plan has yet been presented to President Bush or the senior members of his national security team", comes only a day after the Washington Post ran a front-page story reporting that many senior military figures, including members of the Joint Chiefs, are openly arguing within the administration that the US policy of containment of Iraq has proved successful and that an invasion is unnecessarily risky.
Meanwhile, it has been rumoured that there have been pressures inside the Pentagon to revive the propaganda department closed down earlier this year by the Secretary of State, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, before it even opened. A leaked letter had suggested the office would use pliable journalists to plant false stories around the world.
The timing of the report on the new "inside-out" strategy for dealing with Iraq would certainly serve the purpose of countering claims that the military or the administration had gone soft on Iraq while also contributing to unease in Baghdad about US intentions. It may well also be true.
The rationale for such an attack is rooted in the belief that it might be possible to quickly take out Iraq's capability to respond with weapons of mass destruction. Units isolated and leaderless in the Iraqi countryside would be less willing to use such weapons, runs the theory, if they believed that Saddam Hussein had been toppled.
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joe Biden, who is preparing to hold hearings on Iraq this week, admitted as much to the New York Times: "That is where the argument for an inside-out operation gains credibility. There is a diminished possibility that he will use chemical or biological weapons."
Such an attack would also play to a US strength in "force projection", the ability to strike massively at long distance. The idea would be to isolate or kill Saddam Hussein, and then radiate forces outwards from Baghdad, essentially the reverse of the Gulf War strategy.
Within the Bush Administration, there are also important differences about war aims. The more hawkish members want those defined simply as the removal of Saddam Hussein, with the most limited residual role for US forces. The Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, on the other hand, shares European concerns that the US must assist in the establishment of a stable successor regime.
