http://www.msnbc.com/news/870749.asp?vts=030620030135
March 5 ? U.S. forces plan to drop 10 times the bombs in the opening days of the air campaign in Iraq that they did in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, officials said Wednesday. It would be an overwhelming demonstration of the strategy Pentagon officials call ?shock and awe,? to be followed by a ground assault in the region by part of the 300,000 U.S. troops now in or nearing the region.
IF PRESIDENT BUSH orders the invasion of Iraq, powerful airstrikes with thousands of bombs and missiles would be combined with quick ground assaults ? a combination intended to overwhelm Saddam Hussein?s defenses, keeping him from mustering catastrophic retaliation and convincing his forces they can?t win, Pentagon officials have said.
They said Wednesday that part of that plan is to launch an initial air bombardment using 10 times the number of precision-guided weapons fired in the opening days of the 1991 war. Targets will include Saddam?s military and political headquarters, air defenses, communications facilities and systems Saddam could use to launch chemical and biological weapons the Bush administration says he has.
But some of the ordnance possibly earmarked for Iraq includes a new kind of weapon ? the biggest in the U.S. conventional arsenal, NBC News? Jim Miklaszewski reported Wednesday. The United States could drop a new weapon, nicknamed ?the mother of all bombs.? It weighs 21,000 pounds. Like its predecessor, the ?daisy cutter,? the bomb?s blast would create a huge mushroom cloud. The weapon could be used for shock value, dropped well away from populated areas.
March 5 ? U.S. forces plan to drop 10 times the bombs in the opening days of the air campaign in Iraq that they did in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, officials said Wednesday. It would be an overwhelming demonstration of the strategy Pentagon officials call ?shock and awe,? to be followed by a ground assault in the region by part of the 300,000 U.S. troops now in or nearing the region.
IF PRESIDENT BUSH orders the invasion of Iraq, powerful airstrikes with thousands of bombs and missiles would be combined with quick ground assaults ? a combination intended to overwhelm Saddam Hussein?s defenses, keeping him from mustering catastrophic retaliation and convincing his forces they can?t win, Pentagon officials have said.
They said Wednesday that part of that plan is to launch an initial air bombardment using 10 times the number of precision-guided weapons fired in the opening days of the 1991 war. Targets will include Saddam?s military and political headquarters, air defenses, communications facilities and systems Saddam could use to launch chemical and biological weapons the Bush administration says he has.
But some of the ordnance possibly earmarked for Iraq includes a new kind of weapon ? the biggest in the U.S. conventional arsenal, NBC News? Jim Miklaszewski reported Wednesday. The United States could drop a new weapon, nicknamed ?the mother of all bombs.? It weighs 21,000 pounds. Like its predecessor, the ?daisy cutter,? the bomb?s blast would create a huge mushroom cloud. The weapon could be used for shock value, dropped well away from populated areas.
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