ARAB-US RELATIONS - Sept. 6 - 'Attack On Kurds Would Prompt Military Response'.

Defence department sources say the US has developed highly classified plans for at least 3 days of intense attacks against Iraqi military targets if Pres. Saddam Hussein's military strikes at the minority Kurdish population in northern Iraq this fall. The sources say that a US Army Patriot missile battery - recently placed on a "heightened state of readiness" for possible deployment to Israel - was alerted out of concern that Iraq might fire Scud missiles at Israel in response to any potential US military action. Officials caution that any action by the US would have to be prompted by Iraqi military assaults against the minority Kurds, who are generally considered by Baghdad to be hostile to the government of Saddam Hussein. Sources say US analysts are divided on whether the Iraqi military will pursue military objectives in the Kurdish region this fall. But they say the planning was "prudent" in light of Iraq's violent history with the Kurds. Officials say the proposed US strike plan would include cruise-missile attacks and air strikes against a range of Iraqi targets, including military sites and Iraqi infrastructure associated with Saddam's military machine. One official says the US has closely monitored recent Iraqi troop movements in the northern part of the country, but has seen no unusual activity. He says: "It could just be normal troop rotation". Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were briefed on the planning on Sept. 5.

(The aircraft carrier USS George Washington and its battle group are in the Persian Gulf. The carrier group includes a number of ships capable of firing Tomahawk Land Attack cruise missiles. The George Washington carries an airwing of about 75 combat aircraft. The US maintains a carrier battle group in the Gulf at all times to provide air power for enforcement of the southern "no-fly" zone and to keep a high-profile US presence in the region. Iraq is vulnerable in the south to US and British warplanes based in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and in the north to fighter and attack planes based in Incirlik, Turkey. US officials apparently do not want to be caught off-guard, as they were in 1996 when Iraq moved against Kurds in the north under the guise of carrying out routine exercises. In response to the surprise Iraqi move, the US struck 14 targets on Sept. 3, 1996 in southern Iraq with 27 Tomahawk Land-Attack cruise missiles, but only after an Iraqi military assault against the Kurdish town of Irbil. The Baghdad government at that time installed pro-Saddam Kurds into positions of power in Irbil. That round of US strikes was widely seen as an impotent response to the Iraqi strong-arm tactics in Irbil.)

Sources say the contingency plans call for several days of strikes, but would not be as intense as the attacks that took place in 1998, during Operation Desert Fox, when the US attacked 100 targets in Iraq in response to a dispute between Iraq and UN arms inspectors that led to the departure of the UN team. Pentagon officials said at the time that the strikes set back by about 2 years Iraq's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction and greater ballistic missile capability. There has been speculation that the US might respond militarily to an anticipated Iraqi refusal to allow UN arms inspectors back into Iraq, but Pentagon officials say such a proposal was opposed by important US allies, including Saudi Arabia, which provides bases to US and British warplanes patrolling Iraq's "no-fly" zone.