Baghdad or bust: the British-American military road-map for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein

The battle plans were drawn up months, if not years, ago. Since then, they have been sent back to the planners numerous times, fine-tuned to take account of new developments, with some parts even torn up and thrown away.

Now, with a military strike against Iraq all but inevitable – and perhaps just days away – there is an overwhelming sense that Washington believes those plans will ensure the defeat of Saddam Hussein and his army will be an entirely one-sided fight. Forget the slightest doubts about the outcome of the venture on which they are about to embark, here in Kuwait some US army officers talk of storming to Baghdad in a matter of hours.

"We have sufficient military capacity to do the job that America's military would be asked to do," US General Tommy Franks said this week at America's regional battle headquarters in nearby Qatar. "If called on to do this mission, there is no doubt about who is the victor, there is no doubt."

The US and their British allies are relying upon three factors to overcome the Iraqi forces: fear, intimidation and an overwhelmingly superior strike-force.

The opening volley from that strike-force will most likely come at night with a simultaneous attack using missiles fired from warships in the Gulf and American and British bombers pounding Baghdad and other major cities with up to 3,000 precision guided-bombs designed to take out military installations and anti-aircraft weapons.

General Richard Myers, head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a recent Pentagon briefing that the blitzkrieg planned for the opening strike of the war would be "such a shock to the system that the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on that the end was inevitable". This form of intimidation he referred to as "shock and awe".

Unlike the 1990-1991 Gulf War, in which coalition forces bombed Iraqi defences for 40 days before committing ground forces, this time the assaults are likely to be nearly simultaneous.

Bulldozers mounted on the front of tanks may play a key part in the initial ground assault from the south, breaking through sand defences and overrunning Iraqi forces close to the Kuwaiti border. The US 3rd Infantry Division revealed its plans this week for using the machines to gouge breaches in banks, ditches and electrified fences, clearing the way for more than 500 tanks and armoured vehicles to pour through.

At the same time, American and British special forces, some already operating in Iraq's western desert, would be deployed to secure the oilfields and to locate and destroy President Saddam's Scud missiles before he could launch them against either Israel or the invading forces.

With Turkey having refused to allow US troops to open a northern front from its border, America will almost certainly fly airborne troops to northern Iraq to create a force that could link up with anti-Saddam Kurdish militia forces which it has been training. General Franks has already made clear his intention to do just that. The US 101st Airborne, called the Screaming Eagles after their divisional shoulder insignia, and equipped with Apache helicopters, would be asked to do this job. They may also have to intervene to prevent fighting between Kurds and the Turks.

If the British contingent of 26,000 troops based in Kuwait is called upon, its main task will be to take and control the south-eastern Iraqi city of Basra and the oilfields near by. Then there is the matter of Baghdad. Military officials believe the push to the edges of the Iraqi capital will be relatively straightforward:

In the south, most military installations have been destroyed by 12 years of US and British bombing. President Saddam's regular army numbers some 300,000 conscripts, and they are believed to be demoralised and poorly trained. After more than a decade of sanctions, their equipment is likely to be less effective than it was in 1991.

US officials are so confident of victory they have been trying to communicate with Iraqi soldiers in the south to let them know how to surrender when fighting starts. But in Baghdad things could be more difficult, especially if President Saddam fears he has nothing to lose.

Iraqi workers have been digging trenches around the capital, apparently to be filled with oil and set alight to create a thick cloud of smoke that could interfere with the laser guidance system on US bombs. President Saddam could also bomb dams on the Euphrates and the Tigris, flooding the Mesopotamian plain to slow the US advance.

He is likely to defend Baghdad by establishing concentric rings, the first protected by the 60,000-strong Republican Guard, which is expected to stand and fight. The best soldiers, the 15,000-strong Special Republican Guard, are likely to protect the inner city, supported by the 5,000-strong Special Security Organisation. These forces will probably also be deployed to protect President Saddam's home city of Tikrit.

"Americans should not look to the relatively antiseptic wars for Kuwait and Kosovo as a guide," General Myers said last week. "If it were to come down to fighting block by block in Baghdad, the images could be brutal. We have to be mentally prepared for that." Many analysts believe that given America's experience in Vietnam, and more presciently during the Black Hawk incident in Somalia when 18 Army Rangers and Delta special forces were killed in a botched raid, the US and British will be wise to avoid street fighting. In these circumstances, civilian casualties would be much higher and the hi-tech weaponry that gives US forces such an advantage would be less useful.

But all of this leaves unanswered many questions, some of them crucial. What happens if a Scud missile lands on Tel Aviv, resulting in an immediate military response from Israel? What happens if President Saddam decides to use weapons of mass destruction? (After all, why should the US expect him to play clean when he is fighting for his life?) And what happens if an American smart bomb turns out to be dumb and takes out a hospital, the misery of which is captured on film by the al-Jazeera television station and relayed around the Arab world and beyond?

These are the scenarios that could disrupt the swagger of America's military machine. US plans may go as anticipated but they may not. It is that uncertainty which no amount of planning can overcome.