Up to 250,000 soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors, will be deployed around the Persian Gulf region, said military sources whodiscussed war planning on the condition of anonymity.

But thousands of ground troops will be held back at bases in Turkey, Kuwait and Qatar as reserve forces in case the initial invasion meets an unexpected resistance, they said.

Key in the attacks will be the performances of stealth aircraft,B-2 bombers, F-117 fighters and Tomahawk cruise missiles. The military will rely on them to take down key command and control facilities and air defenses.

Shutting down Iraqi radars and some 60 surface-to-air missile sites will be crucial to allowing a follow-on wave of fighters andbombers to go after Iraq's military, especially Saddam Hussein's most loyal Republican Guard troops in and around Baghdad.

US military officials said the plan calls for avoiding urban combat and casualty rates in street-to-street fighting would likely be high. Instead, the plan is to isolate the capital, spurring Saddam to run.

The US hope is that some of his key generals will change sides."We're getting a lot of secondhand stuff," said one official when asked whether top officers would fight Saddam.

US President George W. Bush and his aides have warned Iraq's generals not to follow orders to use Saddam's arsenal of deadly nerve gas or biological weapons.

(Xinhua News Agency November 14, 2002)