U.S. Plans A Small Invasion Force To Take Iraq
by DEBKAfile
29 July 2002
"Our military sources describe the present plan as being for a US-UK force of up to 75,000 troops attacking in three synchronous bridgeheads.
Force One
This first contingent, also the smallest - no more than 30,000 to 40,000 troops
- will attack from the north, setting out from US installations in southern
Turkey, mainly the large air base at Incirlik. They will link up with US special
forces already present in northern Iraq, US commando-trained Kurdish forces,
Turkish special forces positionednear Mosul and Kirkuk and Turkish-trained Turkomans
Its primary mission will be to cleanse the Syrian-Iraqi Western
desert on the frontier with Syria of Iraqi missiles, especially the ones capable
of carrying chemical and biological warheads. Its second objective will be to
seize all of northern Iraq and drive out Iraqi forces, before going on to capture
the oil towns of Kirkuk and Mosul.
Force Two
This one will drive across from Jordan. Ferried in by airplane or helicopter,
or parachuted in, the task of Force Two will be to seize three or four main
air bases in western and central Iraq, after they have been thoroughly pounded
in a US air-cruise missile blitz. The captured bases will be converted for the
use of American bomber and fighter squadrons, some diverted from the Persian
Gulf and Red Sea. This action comes under the overall plan for the US military
to operate from inside Iraq - unlike the doctrine followed in Afghanistan, where
the US army operated from outside bases. Engineering units will prepare Iraqi
installations such as H-3, H-4 and the massive al-Baghdadi air base for the
influx of US warplanes and troops.
Force Three
This force will push into Iraq in two waves, the first,
comprised mostly of US special forces, from bases in Eritrea, Jordan and the
Sinai and from US navy ships, will fan out across central Iraq, including Baghdad;
its paramount mission being to strike and seize the headquarters and habitations
of Saddam Hussein, his family and close associates, as well as the countrys
hidden depots of missiles and chemical and biological weapons systems.
The second wave, having captured and occupied bases inside Iraq,
will advance from there to take on the heaviest and most dangerous combat assignment:
destroying the Iraqi leadership and its military power base. Washingtons
military planners calculate that Saddam, rather than throw in the sponge, will
throw his entire arsenal, including nuclear, biological and chemical weapons,
against this force, an escalation that could bring forth an American nuclear
response to take him out."