Analysis: The 'inside-out' solution to the problem of Saddam

As arguments rage in the US over how to depose the Iraqi president, a new strategy to trigger his overthrow is under consideration

Maybe, just maybe, this week will provide a few answers to some of the myriad questions about US policy towards Iraq.

The basic assumption is not in doubt. President George Bush wants to get rid of Saddam Hussein. To achieve that end, he is prepared to use, as he put it at a press conference on 8 July, "all the tools at our disposal" – economic, diplomatic, financial and military".

But the how, the when, the "what happens afterwards" are as unclear today as when this administration started to train its sights upon Baghdad, even before 11 September.

War, even a war as heavily trailed and potentially one-sided as one against Iraq, is a jarring and horrible matter in which hundreds, probably thousands of people will die – some of them Americans.

However, real debate has been non-existent. In the US, if not in Britain – Washington's one likely ally in the venture – a new Iraq war is accepted as inevitable. Public opinion has been numbed by the memory of 11 September, the drumbeat of warnings about the "axis of evil" and the simplistic either-for-us-or-against-us rhetoric of Mr Bush himself.

But now, belatedly, things may change. This week, the Senate Foreign Relations committee will summon the top brass of the Bush administration to explain its policy over Iraq. Do not expect announcement of an invasion date. But the hearings should push the debate beyond press leaks and sabre-rattling into the crucial realm of cause, execution and effect.

There are three ways for Washington to get rid of President Saddam: by fomenting a coup, by encouraging a popular uprising, or by using military force, which might well pave the way to a coup or an uprising.

The first on its own appears unlikely. The Iraqi leader has seen off plots and coup attempts aplenty. Nor is there much sign that either Washington or the opposition-in-exile, most notably the Iraqi National Congress (INC), has agents in place to do the job. A popular uprising looks scarcely more promising.

In 1995 the INC launched a "Three Cities" plan, posited on popular insurrections in the oil towns of Mosul and Kirkuk in the north and Al Basrah in the south – both in "no-fly-zones" patrolled by British and US warplanes. But to no avail.

Which leaves the military option.

As President Bush and Tony Blair repeatedly assure, no final decision has been taken. But that does not mean pretty detailed proposals have not been put up by the planners.

Of the two most widely canvassed schemes, one follows the so-called "Afghan model", whereby a combination of massive bombing, the introduction of US and British elite forces and the local opposition would topple President Saddam.

The other is a conventional assault, essentially the "son of Desert Storm", involving air attacks and an invasion by 250,000 troops – a force half the size of the one Mr Bush's father sent to liberate Kuwait in 1991, but with even deadlier weaponry and firepower.

Yesterday a third plan surfaced in the New York Times, essentially a compromise between Variants One and Two. It is dubbed the "inside-out" solution, a 21st century version of the blitzkrieg, employing massive bombing and an attack – presumably by a large airborne force – on Baghdad and a few key centres. This would supposedly trigger the overthrow of President Saddam and the rapid collapse of his regime.

But argument rages in Washington over practically every issue. A portion of the military is against a campaign, in whatever guise. This school maintains that post-Gulf War "containment" has worked reasonably well. It holds that President Saddam is less of a threat than he is cracked up to be, and that a direct attack carries risks not justified by the potential reward

Others – again mainly generals in uniform at the Pentagon – believe that the wisest course is a carefully plotted, comprehensive assault, ie Variant Two.

The real split, however, runs along the familiar faultline, pitting civilian hawks like Vice-President Dick Cheney, the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, his deputy, against the more cautious military and that old soldier on civvy street, Colin Powell, the Secretary of State. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he was the least enthusiastic member of the high command in 1991 for the use of force to throw President Saddam out of Kuwait.

The debate over attacking Iraq can perhaps best be understood if – like Gaul by Caesar – it is divided into three parts: before, during and after.

The first problem for Mr Bush (and Mr Blair) is one of justification.

The simplest way, of course, would be certain proof of close ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa'ida, best of all that he was in some way involved with 11 September. That would remove many misgivings abroad, and provide an underpinning of sorts for Mr Bush's new doctrine of "pre-emptive self defence" against states believed likely to launch terrorist strikes against the US.

Alas, such proof has not materialised. So the US and Britain are likely to claim that Saddam's refusal to re-admit United Nations weapons inspectors is justification enough for an attack – thus circumventing the UN Security Council and an almost certain Russian or Chinese veto. The basis for this claim is UNSC Resolution 678 of November 1990 authorising the US and others "to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area".

That last provision covers the post-Gulf War Resolution 687 of April 1991, setting up the current system for inspecting and destroying Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. By refusing to have the UN inspectors back, Saddam is in breach of this resolution and thus liable to attack under 687.

International policy lawyers are divided on precisely this point. Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) also fuel the great uncertainty of the second period, the war itself.

It is assumed Saddam has chemical and biological weapons, and a dozen or two converted Scud missiles with which to deliver them, either against a big concentration of US troops or Israel.

He is suspected too of at least working on a nuclear programme. With his regime – and life – at stake, why should he not use them? Could the US, for all its hi-tech wizardry, really eliminate these weapons by airstrikes before they are used? Hence the misgivings inside the Pentagon.

But the largest uncertainties by far surround the third and final phase, the aftermath. WMD or no WMD, the US would win a Second Gulf War, even if almost every Arab state in the region opposed it, and its only ally in the field were Britain (and perhaps France).

But then what? Hence the warning King Abdullah of Jordan is conveying when he meets Mr Blair and Mr Bush this week. An attack, he and others of Washington's wellwishers in the Arab world fear, would merely open a "Pandora's box" of troubles – at least until there is real progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in a sense favourable to the Palestinians.

Mr Bush may demand regime change in Baghdad and Ramallah. Privately most Arabs wish he would press for a bit of regime change in Jerusalem. If the Middle East conflict continues to rage, Mr Bush may find that a successful war to remove Saddam may prove tragically counterproductive.

The US has not said what it believes a successor regime in Baghdad will look like, let alone who will lead it. War therefore might force America to station tens of thousands of troops in Iraq to keep the country together.

The US would thus be enmeshed in the "nationbuilding" Mr Bush so detests, indeed in overt colonialism.

In the process, as it seeks to maintain Iraq's territorial unity, the US might find itself fighting the Kurds in the north and the Shi'ites in the south – the very people who have been its implicit allies against Saddam. And around the Arab world, hatred of "American imperialists", and the regimes which back them would only grow, creating new generations of radicals and potential terrorists. Has Washington thought any of this through?

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings should give a first, partial answer.