WELL BEGUN IS HALF DONE:

Iraqi troops flee front line (TIM RIPLEY, 3/17/03, The Scotsman)

UP TO 15 per cent of Iraqi conscripts holding Saddam Hussein’s northern front line have already deserted, according to US special forces in the region.

Elite US troops based in the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq are regularly probing Iraqi lines, to draw up target lists for airstrikes.

They are looking for pockets of ‘hard core’ pro-Saddam troops who can be attacked first to break the back of resistance.

It is hoped the attacks will turn the trickle of desertions into a torrent, allowing Kurdish resistance fighters to drive southward to seize the Kirkuk and Mosul oil fields.

Liaison teams have been building up links with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters from the KDP and PUK resistance groups. As in Afghanistan, these teams have been operating largely in plain clothes to avoid attracting the attention of western journalists based in the Kurdish safe haven.

Up to five thousand US, British and Australian special forces troops are now deployed around Iraq’s borders and are already playing a key role in General Tommy Franks’ war plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime.

But their main role will come in the first few hours of the attack. Oil facilities at the top of the Arabian Gulf are to be the target of lightning US and British special forces raids to thwart the Iraqis opening their taps and releasing millions of barrels of oil in a campaign of ‘environmental terrorism’.

It is at least possible that the war will be effectively won by the time it is declared. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 17, 2003 11:33 PM