- NEW YORK (Reuters)
- The Bush administration is plotting a potential major air campaign and
ground invasion early next year to topple the Iraqi government of President
Saddam Hussein, the New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
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- The use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops is being considered,
the Times said.
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- President Bush has not issued any order for the Pentagon
to mobilize its forces, and there is no official plan for an invasion,
the newspaper said.
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- For years, official U.S. policy has been to work for
a "regime change" in Iraq. Since the Sept. 11 strikes, which
exposed America's vulnerability to attack, the Bush administration has
repeatedly said it has to act to prevent the possibility of Baghdad using
weapons of mass destruction. The statements have caused unease among many
European and Arab nations.
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- The Times reported the use of American or combined allied
forces became a possibility after two alternate scenarios were rejected.
The White house concluded a coup in Iraq would be unlikely to succeed and
a proxy battle using local forces there would be insufficient to bring
a change in power.
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- "There have been at least six coup attempts in the
1990s, and they consistently fail," an administration official told
the Times.
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- Dissident Iraqi military officers "sent signals
to us, `We're ready for a coup,' and the next thing you know these guys
are murdered or it fails or people have cold feet at the end and leave
the country," he said. "It's a horrific police state. Nobody
trusts anyone, so how can you pull off a coup?"
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- The Times reported the timing of early next year delay
resulted from a need "to create the right military, economic and diplomatic
conditions. These include avoiding summer combat in bulky chemical suits,
preparing for a global oil price shock, and waiting until there is progress
toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
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- Former President George Bush, the current U.S. leader's
father, launched an attack on Iraq in 1991 to drive its invading forces
out of Kuwait but he concluded the war without toppling Saddam.
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- One question to be answered in the current planning is
the extent of expected cooperation from Saudi Arabia. The Pentagon has
been working on the assumption it might have to carry out any military
action without the use of U.S. bases in the kingdom, the Times reported.
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- The planning anticipates the possible use of bases in
Turkey and Kuwait for U.S. forces while Qatar would be the replacement
for the air operations center in Saudi Arabia.
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- According to the Times, there are conflicting views of
the diplomatic impact, with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and their senior aides feeling that "Arab leaders
would publicly protest but secretly celebrate Mr. Hussein's downfall."
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- The other view, held at the State Department and among
some at the White House, is that "efforts to topple Mr. Hussein would
be viewed by Arabs as a confrontation with Islam, destabilizing the entire
region and complicating the broader campaign against Osama bin Laden and
his network, al Qaeda," which Washington blames for the September
attacks, the newspaper reported.
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