Likely targets of U.S. action in Iraq

(CNN) -- Pentagon preparations indicate plans for a heavy, sustained bombing campaign if the decision is made to attack Iraq.

Retired Maj. Gen. Perry Smith, a CNN military analyst, believes the campaign would be surprisingly different from Operation Desert Storm.

"It will be a much shorter war," he said. "It will be strictly air power. Navy air power. Air Force air power. Much more precision. During the Gulf War, only 9 percent of the bombs dropped were precision-guided bombs. This time it will be high-precision. New weapons. B-2 bombers, B-1 bombers. Bunker busters -- very different from what we saw in '91."

Gen. Anthony Zinni, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Central Command, said last November that in the case of Iraq, a "serious (military) response puts at risk the things that mean most to Saddam (Hussein)" -- his special Republican Guard units and command and control operations.

Zinni said the aim of any U.S. military action would be to "deny (Saddam) the capability to continue to threaten his neighbors and his own people and to threaten the world with his capabilities."

Zinni declined to list specific targets, but it is expected that they would include:

Suspected chemical and biological weapons plants

At President Clinton's direction, national security aides have been consulting with allies and other nations on the prospect of a military strike. Such an attack would take out the sites where Iraqis are believed to be manufacturing chemical and biological weapons.

Saddam Hussein's palaces could be among these targets; Iraq has refused to allow U.N. arms inspectors to search them for banned weapons.

Some of these sites could be hard to reach. Defense officials fear the conventional U.S. arsenal would be unable to penetrate deeply buried bunkers that may house weapon- making laboratories. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon earlier this week pointedly declined to rule out the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons against these fortified targets.

Weapons stockpiles

Another key target would be the chemical and biological weapons themselves. But the Pentagon isn't sure where they are. Officials suspect Saddam Hussein has been playing a shell game, moving them from site to site.

In December, Zinni acknowledged "we do not have a good sense of what he has, and where he has it."

Command and control

A key target in any military action, command and control centers were among the allies' first targets in the Persian Gulf War. F-117 Stealth attack planes and Tomahawk cruise missiles would likely again be employed to destroy Iraq's telecommunications services and damage its security and intelligence capability.

Anti-aircraft installations

Zinni recently noted that Iraq retains an air defense system that is "very robust" and has the backup equipment to withstand attacks. Its surface-to-air missiles, including an improved version of the SA-2 missile the Soviets used in 1960 to shoot down the U-2 flown by Francis Gary Powers, have been dispersed throughout the country to make them more difficult to attack.

These installations would be likely targets of improved Tomahawk missiles.

Iraqi air forces

Iraq's air force is a probable target of any future military action even though it never fully recovered from the Gulf War. Pentagon sources say only 184 of its 305 remaining warplanes are working, and those are aging MiG-21s. A lack of spare parts -- due to sanctions -- has contributed to the decline.

Meanwhile, Iraq is boxed in by more than 200 U.S. and allied fighter planes, including U.S. F-15s and F-16s in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, A-10 "tank killers" in Kuwait, and F-18s on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the Gulf. Six of the ships in the Gulf are equipped with deadly accurate Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The United States could expect air superiority from the start of any engagement.

The Republican Guard

Bacon has acknowledged that any U.S. air strike would not be limited to weapons and command sites, but would also be directed at Iraqi military units.

Those would include Iraq's most elite fighting force, the Republican Guard, which has been rebuilt since the Gulf War by cannibalizing other units.

Bacon said the special Republican Guard units that provide security forces for Saddam's regime would be particular targets, as would the units that gather intelligence and send out commands to forces in the field.

Iraq Standoff Main  |  The Dispute  |  The Diplomacy  |  Military Moves  |  Inside Iraq

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