Print This Page Email This Page See Most Sent

• Marine Scouts Wait for Second Push Into Iraq • Praise, Protests, Threats: Reaction Around the World • Satellites Give U.S. Missiles Dead-on Aim

The strategy of a "shock and awe" air war will have worked if the Iraqis surrender Baghdad without a fight, the author who helped coin the expression to describe the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq said Saturday.

Harlan Ullman, the military strategist who wrote a 1996 publication that outlined the doctrine of arraying massive airpower against an enemy, said the widely used phrased is not well understood.

The Air Force and Navy demonstrated the concept Friday night with a stunning display of firepower against what U.S. officials said were military targets in Baghdad. Plans were to send 1,500 planes on bombing runs, augmented by 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

"People think that shock and awe is to destroy cities," Ullman told Associated Press Television News. "That's not just the rationale. The rationale is to bring intense pressure on the enemy and do minimum damage to the civilian infrastructure."

Ullman predicted U.S. and British troops will arrive in Baghdad by Tuesday.

"The question is, `Will Baghdad give up without a fight, or will we have to go in and take it or impose a siege and starve it?'" he said.

Combat would result in many casualties because the Iraqis will mix civilians with soldiers, he said, and a siege would allow civilians' privations to be broadcast around the world.

"We hope they'll quit without a fight," Ullman said. "If that's the case, then shock and awe will have worked."

If it doesn't work, he said, "Then we have to go back to the old fashioned way of war, which could be very brutal and very, very bloody."

On the Net: "Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance":

photo credit and caption:

Smoke rises from the periphery of Baghdad as the sun sets Saturday March 22, 2003. Intermittent explosions were heard throughout the day Saturday and by late afternoon at least 12 huge columns of smoke could be seen rising from all along the southern horizon of the city.(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.