Pentagon officials are urging a "decisive" attack against Iraq using air, naval and ground forces if President Bush orders the use of U.S. military might in the Persian Gulf crisis, a newspaper reported Friday.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff are urging that any military action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his huge warmaking capacity be sweeping, simultaneous and deadly, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday."We will attempt to be decisive," said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael J. Dugan.
Dugan and other officials stressed that the United States would not take military action without provocation.
Saddam is holding an estimated 3,000 Americans and 3,000 Britons hostage in Iraq and Kuwait and has ordered some of them held at potential military targets.
The Pentagon is compiling an exhaustive list of Iraqi targets for U.S. airplanes, the Times reported. The Air Force has dispatched an estimated 250 fighter-bombers and fighters, and the Navy has an extra 270 aircraft ready.
Those targets could include Saddam's presidential palace; military command centers; Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons complexes; ballistic missile sites; military airfields; oil refineries and pipelines; water purification plants; ports, rail lines and highways, analysts said.
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said Thursday the United States was organizing a significant military presence in the Middle East and would respond aggressively if provoked.
"If (Saddam) were foolish enough to attack U.S. forces, we clearly are in a position, if the President so decides, to respond very forcefully against those things he cares about - and specifically, those are his forces and his capabilities inside Iraq," Cheney said.
Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered an explicit threat to Saddam on Thursday.
"We will defend our interests. Don't try to scare us or threaten us. It won't work," Powell declared in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Baltimore.
The president, meanwhile, continued to stay out of the public eye, refusing to answer reporters' questions on the Persian Gulf crisis. Bush is vacationing at his Kennebunkport, Maine, home.