US generals embrace new kind of warfare

Beach landings, commando raids deep into enemy territory and plans for mass paratrooper assaults behind the lines. The opening days of the latest Gulf war are reminiscent of another, more daring era in military tactics, the second world war.

After two decades of post-Vietnam caution, during which US forces have only gone to war on their own, overwhelming terms, this amounts to a transformation. In the last Gulf war, 12 years ago, the US-led force pulverised the Iraqi military with five weeks of air bombardment before advancing across a broad front in massed armoured columns and half a million troops.

That war was the ultimate realisation of the Powell doctrine, named after Colin Powell, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and current secretary of state. He is not having a good week. Just as his diplomatic efforts ran into a dead end, his greatest legacy at the Pentagon was swept aside on the beaches of the Faw peninsula.

"Shock and awe" is still clearly on the agenda, with B-52s in the air last night and officials talking about a "big blast" ahead, but in this war it has not been the strategy of first choice. That strategy has been to hit the core of the regime with "decapitation strikes" while prodding its perimeter to test its will to fight, with the outside expectation that the whole structure might implode.

While the opening blows of the last Gulf war were aimed at killing as many Iraqi soldiers as possible, obliterating them in their camps as they stood waiting in the sand, the first moves of this conflict have been designed to give them a chance to live.

They have been given repeated offers to surrender, with millions of air-dropped leaflets, radio broadcasts on hijacked frequencies and even secret contacts through the friends and families of individual officers. The discreet email to the enemy general has become a new weapon of war.

Even as US and British troops were rolling across the Iraq-Kuwait border, the US defence secretary, Donald Rums feld, was still insisting that there was "no need for a broader conflict".

British sources say this is the main reason why the promised "shock and awe" air strikes did not materialise at the start of the campaign. The aim of keeping as much of Iraq's infrastructure in place - as well as the need to avoid civilian casualties - was the main reason why ground troops were sent in so quickly, the British sources say.

The war is becoming a showcase for Mr Rumsfeld's grand plans for transforming the US military into a more flexible, more computer-literate and multidimensional force. Until the last few months, even weeks, he was clearly facing an uphill struggle.

The first blueprint for the invasion of Iraq that General Tommy Franks dropped on his desk, Operation Plan 1006, looked very like the 1991 vintage war, envisaging the use of four or five heavy divisions charging towards Baghdad.

The plan went through several rewrites, amid rows, recriminations and leaks between civilians and uniformed officers in the Pentagon. But it has been the course of events in the months running up to the start of hostilities that has done most to change the plan through forced improvisation.

Turkey's refusal to host US troops meant a whole division, the 4th Infantry Division, stayed at its bases in the US, while its equipment bobbed in the Mediterranean on board three dozen transport ships.

"The US military has had transformation thrust upon it in the last few weeks," Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, said, pointing out that "it is unprecedented for the US mili tary to begin a campaign with so many of the required forces still in transit".

The failure to obtain UN backing for the war meant the deployment of equipment was seriously delayed and US military planners had to be even more nervous than usual about the prospect of causing civilian casualties, or even killing significant numbers of Iraqi soldiers.

"The last thing we want is industrial warfare," said one senior British officer, referring to prolonged airstrikes, tank fire, and artillery barrages.

He added: "We want a stable Iraq and as much as possible of their armed forces in one piece. We do not want to destroy every large tank of the Republican Guard."

British military officials say they will rely on the help of existing Iraqi forces to maintain law and order in a post-Saddam Iraq.

Military sources paint a picture of "British brigadiers alongside Iraqi brigadiers", after the "implosion of the regime", as one put it.

The last, perhaps the most important, part of that transformation came when the CIA became convinced on Wednesday that it had tracked down Saddam Hussein to a building in southern Baghdad. The decision to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles and stealth bombers turned the military plans on their head.

The Iraqis responded by burning oilfields near Basra and lobbing missiles at the coalition forces in Kuwait. The decision was made to send the British and US marines into battle 24 hours earlier than scheduled, in an offensive on Basra and the oilfields. Consequently the ground war got off to a staggered, almost gradual, beginning. It was a long way from the Powell doctrine.

Another element of the new Rumsfeld doctrine has yet to be witnessed in full. Field commanders are being encouraged to practise "vertical envelopment", outflanking enemy forces by flying over them and landing in force behind the lines, encircling and disorienting the Iraqis.

Much of this military transformation has been improvised on the hoof, rather than imposed on the military mindset, but Mr Rumsfeld's admirers point out that that too is part of the transformation. Field commanders have been encouraged to take daring tactical decisions on their own, and even to take risks.

Gen Franks, who was once portrayed as a ponderous, old-fashioned officer, is now said to have embraced the new strategy. Pentagon officials have insisted that the Texan general is constantly springing surprises.