[infowar.de] New York Post 13.08.02: ZAPPING SADDAM

[Georg Schoefbaenker <schoefbaenker -! - aon - at>]

Infowar.de, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/liste.html
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NEW YORK POST August 13, 2002

ZAPPING SADDAM

By NILES LATHEM

WASHINGTON - New war plans being developed at the Pentagon call for massive 
use of exotic electronic and psychological-warfare technology to disrupt 
Saddam Hussein's communications and convince Iraqi soldiers to stay in 
their barracks, The Post has learned.

U.S. military officials said last night that a preliminary battle plan 
outlined for President Bush last week calls for the most extensive use of 
electronic and psychological warfare in history - including secret new 
electromagnetic pulse weapons to disable Saddam's entire command and 
control structure.

Although the plan also calls for the insertion of as many as 75,000 U.S. 
ground troops, Pentagon planners are hoping to avoid as much bloodshed as 
possible by defeating Saddam's leadership - not his entire army.

Officials stressed that the new plan, emerging after Defense Secretary 
Donald Rumsfeld rejected plans for a more traditional invasion of Iraq 
involving 250,000 troops, is still being refined and that Bush has not made 
a final decision on whether to attack Iraq.

The new plan was outlined for Bush by Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the 
Central Command.

Sources said that separating the Butcher of Baghdad from his military 
leaders by bombing his command structures and disabling Iraqi 
communications links would be an early priority.

With Saddam likely to go into hiding, psychological warfare units would 
bombard Iraqi airwaves with messages from special aircraft known as 
Commando Solo - warning troops to stay in their barracks or be slaughtered, 
military officials said.

The United States also plans to warn Iraqi commanders that if they use 
chemical or biological weapons, they will be hunted down and killed, 
sources said.

Defense sources said the battle plan also calls for the use secret 
electromagnetic pulse weapons to disable Saddam's communications.

Since the 1980s, the United States has been developing weapons that convert 
explosions into small electromagnetic pulses that play havoc with computer 
networks and electronic grids.

"Basically, this is a way of going after imprecisely located targets like 
bunkers under palaces. The idea is you use them to isolate the Iraqi 
leadership who are hiding in these bunkers," said John Pike of the think 
tank Globalsecurity.org.


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Copyright 2002 NYP Holdings, Inc.




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