Dr.Evil

WASHINGTON (March 5) - In a strategy Pentagon officials are calling ``shock and awe,'' U.S. forces plan to drop 10 times the bombs in the opening days of the air campaign (Air-force) in Iraq than they did in the first Persian Gulf war, officials said Wednesday.

If Bush orders the invasion of Iraq, the powerful airstrikes with thousands of bombs and missiles would be combined with quick ground assaults - a combination aimed at overwhelming President Saddam Hussein's defenses, keeping him from mustering catastrophic retaliation and convincing his forces they can't win, Pentagon officials have said.

They said Wednesday that part of that plan is to launch an initial air bombardment using 10 times the number of precision-guided weapons fired in the opening days of 1991 war. Targets include Saddam's military and political headquarters, air defenses, communications facilities and systems he could use to launch chemical and biological weapons the Bush administration says he has.

``If asked to go into conflict in Iraq, what you'd like to do is have it be a short conflict,'' said Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers. He spoke Tuesday in an interview with American newspaper reporters.

While some 20 percent of the bombs dropped during the last Gulf War were precision-guided, about 70 percent of the ordnance dropped this time would be guided by lasers, satellites or video cameras, a top Central Command official told reporters in a briefing Wednesday.

He contended that because of that, civilian casualties could be lower than the estimated 3,000 in the 1991 war.

Officials have said a goal in selecting targets for the threatened war is to try to limit civilian casualties and do as little damage as possible to civilian infrastructure. Aside from lessening the impact of the war on Iraqis, that would lower the amount of reconstruction needed afterward and emphasize the point with the Iraqi population that the war is not against them, but their leader.

In the first Gulf war, Baghdad put its losses at 75,000 to 100,000 soldiers killed in action and 35,000 to 45,000 civilians killed by allied bombing.

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated 100,000 Iraqi soldiers killed and 300,000 wounded, and about 3,000 Iraqi civilians killed by bombing. It said accurate information was so scant these figures had error factor of at least 50 percent.

Of more than 540,000 Americans deployed at the peak of the fighting, 148 were killed and 467 wounded. Twenty-four British servicemen were killed as well as two Frenchmen, an Italian and 39 allied Arabs.

Meanwhile, the American propaganda war continued. U.S. Central Command said it had dropped 420,000 leaflets in the no-fly zone over southern Iraq, urging Saddam's troops to desert and alerting Iraqis to radio frequencies where they can hear anti-Saddam programming.

And American land, air and sea forces already in the Gulf region or ordered there has now topped 300,000 as time ticks down on a decision on whether to use force to disarm and overthrow Saddam.

In addition to more than 100,000 U.S. troops based in Kuwait and every other country on the Arabian Peninsula except Yemen, there are five aircraft carrier battle groups nearby, each with about 50 strike aircraft aboard and including 30 to 40 vessels armed with Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles.

A sixth carrier, the USS Nimitz, is heading to the Gulf to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln.

They said that they planned to drop 3000 bombs in 48 hours in one article i dont see what the point is but dam 10 bombs thats going to be a challenege for me

Dr.Evil

and by the way do you think we should disarm saddam or overthrow him i say overthrow him and get this stuff over with

airsoft guy

Christ on a pony, didn't Duo say something about this kind of crap being put in the goddamn War with Iraq thread?!?!?! Yes I belive he did, i say we burn this heathen.

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Dr.Evil

geez i didnt know what your problem

Grifty

Dont worry bout it but i dont think thats true cuz why the hell would we give our strategy to such detail as this right over to the media? They may have SAID that but i think they are planning differently. Oh yeah this seriously should have been in the Iraq thread but dont worry about it, everyone is just really angry cuz no one seems to be listening...

DuoDSG

ARGH!

For the LAST TIME, please post this stuff in the War with Iraq thread...I already read all those articles, yes, I know the strategy that will be used- massive bombardment of key targets and quick sweeps by troops through Iraq onto Baghdad sprearheaded by mechanized divisions with tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles in the forefront.

I see another thread like this (after I've repeated that they belong in that thread), I will delete it without warning, it's getting THAT annoying. And as you all know, I'm a very hard guy to annoy....

Thanks for those that already said to put it in the thread, it helps

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lastonestanding

how do you think iraq is going to retaliate, if they have wepons of mass destruct then wont he send one our way, but i guess its only time before they do somthing to us, but i think we could work it out with out thousands of deaths, but disarming of all iraqs forces is unreasonable, cause that would leave them defensless. but what do i kno im just the civilian.

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Power_House406

well it's about god damn time we did something............

m98_bmx

There dropping 3,000 bombs in under 48 hours. I dunno if you mentioned that in the article cause i was too lazy to read it.

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