[A-List] Iraq: US and Britain plan seaborne attack

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Turkish Daily News
December 23, 2002

US and Britain plan seaborne Iraq attack

- Israel steps up preparations for possible US war against Iraq,
scheduling joint exercises with US forces and gas mask lessons
for schoolchildren

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The United States and Britain were reported at the weekend to be
planning a massive seaborne invasion if war broke out against
Iraq, a strategy planners hope would make troops less exposed to
chemical or biological attack.

Israel said it had stepped up preparations for a possible
U.S.-led war against Iraq, scheduling joint exercises with U.S.
forces and gas mask lessons for schoolchildren.

Israeli media reported Israel would go on high alert from Jan. 15
in anticipation that hostilities would erupt in the month
following Jan. 27, date of a report to the Security Council by
United Nations arms inspection chiefs.

The country's Defense Ministry would not confirm the date.

The spectre of war has loomed larger in recent days, with the
United States condemning Iraq's U.N.-ordered weapons declaration
delivered on Dec. 7 as a "material breach" of Security Council
Resolution 1441 on Iraqi disarmament.

U.N. experts pursued their hunt for banned arms on Sunday as
Iraqi newspapers decried "savage interference" in their work by
Washington and London. Iraqi officials said sites searched by the
inspectors included a space research centre in Baghdad.

Scores of U.N. arms inspectors are scouring Iraq for evidence of
banned nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, but Washington
has made clear it believes it has enough evidence of its own to
justify military action if Iraq does not come clean.

Iraq denies possessing weapons of mass destruction.

A British Defense Ministry source said the United States and
Britain were planning a major invasion of Iraq from the Gulf as
the first stage in any ground war.

"Discussions on future amphibious operations are at an advanced
stage," the source said.

The source said planners were leaning towards an amphibious
assault in part because of the difficulties of protecting a large
ground-based army from chemical or biological attack.

"Would you really put 200,000 troops in one place and let them be
targets for an attack?" the source said.

Other ground forces could deploy later, after amphibious forces
had already opened up a front, the British source said.

The New York Times reported in its Sunday edition that U.S.
intelligence agents were already working with Kurdish groups in
northern Iraq opposed to President Saddam Hussein.

"American military planners have visited secluded corners of the
country to examine potential basing sites for use in a war,
according to a Western expert familiar with the activity," the
Times said.

Gas masks for Israeli children

The U.S. military is forging ahead with a build-up that could see
more than 100,000 troops in the Gulf region in January or
February.

Israeli officials said some 1,000 U.S. troops are expected in
Israel this week for an exercise involving U.S.-made Patriot
missiles, which largely failed to intercept the 39 Scud missiles
that Iraq fired at the Jewish state in the 1991 Gulf War.

The Patriot has since been upgraded and Israel has developed and
deployed the Arrow anti-missile system, designed to intercept
Scuds at a higher altitude.

Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, said the U.S.-Israeli military exercise was being held
"in preparation of any possibility of war."

Education ministry director-general Ronit Tirosh told Israel
Radio that teachers had been instructed by soldiers on how to
handle a possible missile attack during school hours and
undergone training to help anxious children.

"The next stage, which will start in about a week, will be to
train the youth and children on how to use gas masks and to
instruct them what should be done at each stage," she said.

In Iraq, several U.N. inspection teams went to the Taji
industrial area north of the capital, including a missile squad
that checked a military site there.

Biological experts drove to al-Kindi Company in Abu Ghuraib, west
of the capital. A chemical company in Nahrawan, south of Baghdad,
attracted the attention of another U.N. team.

The newspaper Babel, owned by Saddam's son Uday, denounced what
it called shameless lies by the United States and Britain about
Iraq's arms programs.

"They should leave the U.N. inspectors to do their job... with no
more savage interference," the newspaper said.

Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh told the United Arab
Emirates Gulf News daily: "We will never give the American and
the British governments the pretext they are looking for to
(wage) their unfair war against our country.

"Iraq will go to any extent of cooperation with the U.N...to
refute claims that we have weapons of mass destruction."

US, allies drop leaflets urging Iraqi desertions

Aircraft from the United States and its allies dropped leaflets
over southern Iraq advertising radio frequencies carrying appeals
to Iraqi soldiers to desert Saddam, the U.S. Central Command
said.

A total of 240,000 leaflets were dropped referring Iraqis to
frequencies on which coalition forces broadcast a series of
anti-Saddam messages. It was the eighth such aerial leaflet
scattering in the past three months, the command said.

"Do not let Saddam tarnish the reputation of soldiers any
longer," said one of the broadcasts, a full text of which was
available on the Central Command Web site, www.centcom.mil.

"Saddam uses the military to persecute those who don't agree with
his unjust agenda," the message said. "Make the decision."

The leaflets were showered over Al Amarah, 165 miles (260 km)
southeast of Baghdad, and As Samawah, 130 miles (210 km)
southeast of Baghdad, said Central Command.

Baghdad - Reuters