Negotiations broke down Friday after two days of talks between U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri.  Meeting in Vienna, the leaders failed to agree on returning U.N. weapons inspectors to the country (see GSN, July 3).

There was progress in the meetings but “not enough, I would have preferred more,” Annan said, adding, “I cannot force a decision.”

Sabri said Iraq is not ready to allow the inspectors to return, officials said.  Iraqi officials want assurances that the United States would not attack Iraq if the regime accepts inspectors, according to the Financial Times.

Technical discussions will continue, but no date has been set for a future high-level meeting, Annan said.  Iraqi officials will probably try to extend the diplomatic process, barring inspectors until they believe a U.S. attack is imminent, analysts said.

U.S. Official Publicizes Military Plans

A Friday New York Times article describing a U.S. planning document for a striking Iraq “did not help the discussions,” participants in the talks said.  Some questioned the timing of the article, which was based on classified information.

Annan said he “would not be surprised” if the article affected the U.N.-Iraqi discussions.  Sabri said the report was “rubbish” created by “old colonialists and evil people” (Carola Hoyos, Financial Times, July 6).  He added that the article “was not a factor in our discussions” (Associated Press/New York Times, July 6).

According to the New York Times report, the document — called “CentCom Courses of Action” and prepared by Central Command planners — envisions air, land and sea-based forces attacking Iraq from the north, south and west to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, an official familiar with the document said (see GSN, June 19).  Under the plan, thousands of U.S. troops would probably invade from Kuwait, hundreds of airplanes based in up to eight countries would attack thousands of targets and special operations forces or CIA operatives would strike suspected WMD sites and Iraqi missiles.

The document is still part of a preliminary planning process, according to the Times.  The United States has not formally discussed the plan with any of the countries listed as potential staging points, officials said.  Neither Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, head of Central Command Gen. Tommy Franks nor the Joint Chiefs of Staff have received a briefing on the plan, officials said.  Any U.S. military strike against Iraq would probably not begin until early next year, senior Bush administration officials have said.

The document does indicate, however, that the outlined plan is moving through military channels, according to the Times.

“Right now, we’re at the stage of conceptual thinking and brainstorming,” a senior defense official said.  “We’re pretty far along.”

Scant Attention to WMD

The plan provides only some discussion of the threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, according to the Times.  It mentions the broad threat from the weapons and the need to deter or counter them.  It does not include precise missions for special operations forces or the possibility of urban warfare in Baghdad and the risk that Iraq might use chemical weapons in such a scenario (Eric Schmitt, New York Times, July 5).

Improving Strikes on Mobile Scuds

As planning for a potential strike against Iraq continues, senior defense officials have said that the U.S. military has greatly improved its ability to find and destroy mobile Scud missiles, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, May 20).  The missiles could carry chemical or biological weapons, analysts said.  If the United States attacked Iraq with the intention of removing Hussein from power, he would be more likely to use those weapons, according to analysts.

“If you make Saddam’s head the price, he has no reason to be deterred,” said Ivo Daalder, a former National Security Council official and an analyst at the Brookings Institution.  “All he needs is one chemical or biological warhead to get anywhere in Israel, and the likelihood is Israel would strike back.  In that sense, the Scud game becomes even more important.”

U.S. military capabilities are better than they were during the 1991 Gulf War, said Eliot Cohen, an analyst at Johns Hopkins University.

“The Iraqis haven’t been able to test-fire a Scud missile since the Gulf War,” he said.  “We’ve had 10 years to think very hard about this.  I think they would be under some real stress, and it would be very difficult to fire those things with any kind of accuracy.”

U.S. laser-guided bombs and targeting devices have improved since the Gulf War, and the Pentagon now has new satellite-guided smart bombs that work in all types of weather, according to the Post.  Over the last decade, the United States has developed the Predator and Global Hawk — new unmanned reconnaissance airplanes that provide sustained views of territories (see GSN, March 11).

Communications capabilities have also improved.  Commanders can now receive data from reconnaissance planes and analyze and relay the data to airplanes in minutes — often fast enough to strike a mobile Scud as it comes out of hiding, officials said.  A new communications system also allows F-15E fighters to receive targeting information directly from the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, a senior Air Force official said.

The most important improvement, according to Air Force officials, is the extensive use of special operations forces to designate targets on the ground.  The forces were deployed in Afghanistan at the beginning of the campaign.

“Scud hunting — clearly that has the potential in certain theaters to be a very high-priority mission,” the senior Air Force official said.  “But that’s not all.  Mobile targets — whether it’s a Scud or an artillery piece or a tank battalion — are key challenges.  This has been an area of extraordinary emphasis since Desert Storm, but even more so since Sept. 11.”

Navy and Air Force officials also said, however, that bombing Iraqi mobile Scuds would be more difficult than bombing Taliban troops and vehicles in Afghanistan.

“We’re working hard not to create a false sense of accomplishment,” a senior Navy official said.

The “miniaturization of technology” has allowed some U.S. rivals to put chemical and biological munitions on smaller weapons, the official said, adding, “As we get better, the problem gets harder” (Vernon Loeb, Washington Post, July 5).

Kurds Wary of U.S. Offensive

Meanwhile, U.S. officials have talked this year with Kurdish leaders from northern Iraq about participation in a possible attempt to overthrow Hussein, but the Kurds have said they fear U.S. abandonment and Hussein’s wrath, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Feb. 12).

The issue even brought rivals Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriot Union of Kurdistan, together to meet with U.S. officials this spring.  Both leaders have said they will place Kurdish interests over U.S. priorities.

Kurdish leaders told the New York Times last week that they would oppose U.S. actions to overthrow Hussein unless the United States provides “guarantees” to the Kurds in advance, including promises that a future Iraqi government would be democratic with a federal structure that would allow for broad Kurdish autonomy in the north (see GSN, March 20).

“We are not ready to take any risks, and if we are not sure of the outcome of any step, then we are not ready to take that step, because we are not sure of improving our circumstances,” Barzani said.

The leaders said the United States has betrayed Kurds in the past, such as encouraging them to oppose Hussein in 1991 and then refusing to send U.S. military support when Iraqi forces cracked down and killed thousands of Kurds.

One Kurdish official also said that the Kurds do not want to draw Hussein’s attention and are trying to signal that the United States — not the Kurds — is his adversary.

“Saddam is our shadow,” the official said.  “He’s always there, right behind us, and we don’t want him to think that we’re drawing the Americans in to overthrow him” (John Burns, New York Times, July 8).

U.K. to Join U.S.

The United Kingdom is preparing to provide at least 30,000 troops to join a U.S. invasion of Iraq early next spring, the London Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday (see GSN, March 11).  The number of British troops in Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Sierra Leone has been reduced in preparation for an attack against Iraq.

“Justifying any attack would not be a problem because the evidence exists that he [Hussein] has weapons of mass destruction.  It will not be made public yet because it would compromise the means by which it was acquired,” a British Defense Ministry official said (Sean Rayment, London Sunday Telegraph, July 7).

Iraqi Newspaper Criticizes Annan

Meanwhile, the Iraqi newspaper Babel, run by Hussein’s son Uday Hussein, criticized Annan today.

“The irresponsible attitude of the United Nations was deliberately aimed at moving the situation in favor of the wish and desires of the United States,” the paper said.

Annan wanted to discuss only returning weapons inspectors to Iraq, but Iraq “will clearly stick to a lifting of the embargo while encouraging the secretary general to adopt a more frank and courageous policy,” the paper said (Agence France-Presse, July 8).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

U.N. Office of the Iraq Program

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