‘Seaborne attack planned on Iraq’

In the 1991 Gulf War, US-led forces assembled a large amphibious task force in the Gulf, but never mounted an assault by sea. Instead, infantry poured into parts of Iraq and Kuwait from Saudi Arabia by land. The British Defence Ministry source said planners were this time leaning towards an amphibious assault in the case of a war with Iraq in part because of the difficulties of protecting a large ground-based Army from chemical or biological attack.

‘‘Would you really put 2,00,000 troops in one place and let them be targets for an attack?’’ the source said. The amphibious option also reduces the diplomatic and political sensitivity of moving large land forces into countries in the region which have not yet publicly given consent for their territory to be used as a launch-pad for an invasion.

Other ground forces could deploy later, after amphibious forces had already opened up a front, the British source said.

The US, Britain and any other allies that join them would have an easier time launching a seaborne attack this time than in 1991 because they already control the main sea lanes into Iraq and have made sure they are free from mines.

Over the past year, Australian, US and British warships patrolling the Gulf to enforce UN sanctions on Iraq have moved their operations from international waters into Iraqi territory.

The allied navies now operate freely up to the mouths of the Khor Abd Allah and Shaat Al Arab estuaries, where Iraq’s great rivers spill over salt marshes into the Gulf. The Shaat Al Arab gives access to Iraq’s main port of Basra on the Euphrates. Three British mine-clearing ships are in the Gulf helping make sure the waterways are clear. Britain’s 3 Commando Brigade would send about 3,000 men to the amphibious operation to join a much larger contingent of Americans. (Reuters)