US: US President George W. Bush's national security team has drawn up a comprehensive plan for a military occupation of Iraq for at least 18 months, during which time the US will take over the country's oilfields to pay for reconstruction.
The plan, leaked to the New York Times, stipulates that a US general will assume command of Iraq after its expected defeat, but that a civilian administrator will be appointed to jump-start the economy and get the oil fields and schools running again. The report, which envisages the most ambitious US takeover of a country since the American post-second World War occupation of Japan, comes against a background of an escalating US military build-up in the Gulf.
The post-invasion plan, already discussed in detail with Mr Bush, also calls for the military trial of the most senior Iraqi leaders, and leniency for officials who co-operate in overthrowing President Saddam Hussein and who identify where any weapons of mass destruction are hidden, the newspaper said.
The US occupation forces would arrest President Hussein and his top leaders and search for weapons of mass destruction, a process that the Pentagon has said could take up to a year.
"Government elements closely identified with Saddam's regime, such as the revolutionary courts or the special security organisation, will be eliminated, but much of the rest of the government will be reformed and kept," the White House report said.
The leaking of the report steps up pressure on Iraqi generals to topple Saddam and bring about regime change themselves. Mr Bush has said that he has not yet made a decision to go to war.
The White House advisers have apparently rejected the idea - favoured by the US Vice President, Mr Dick Cheney - of setting up a provisional government before an invasion, on the grounds that exiled Iraqi groups are not acceptable as future leaders.
The Pentagon is assembling a ground force for a possible invasion of Iraq that could exceed 100,000 troops and include three to four heavy army divisions, an airborne division, a marine division and an assortment of special operations forces, according to defence officials cited by the Washington Post.
The build-up has accelerated in the run-up to the January 27th deadline for the report by UN weapons inspectors to the UN Security Council on what they have found in Iraq.
US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, signed a major deployment order on December 24th and additional deployment orders are expected this week. The US navy has been ordered to prepare two aircraft carrier battle groups and two amphibious assault groups to head to the region sometime in January. In Savannah, Georgia, two combat brigades from the army's 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division which specialises in desert warfare have been told their departure is imminent. B2 bombers are preparing to leave Ellsworth air force base in South Dakota and the 1,000-bed hospital ship USNS Comfort, last deployed for combat during the Gulf War in 1991, left yesterday for duty at the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.
The Pentagon has also alerted at least 275 US army reserve units involving 10,000 troops to be ready to move overseas between January 10th and February 15th. That could bring US strength in the region to 250,000.
The US intends to mount a massive bombing campaign coupled with US special operations attacks against airfields, with 500 to 1,000 sorties in the first day aimed at leadership targets, presidential palaces, air defences, weapons facilities and concentrations of Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard forces across Iraq, according to the Washington Post.