Israeli assessment: U.S. to try to kill Saddam, his family

According to an assessment document prepared for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, officials in Jerusalem believe that the American offensive against Iraq, if ultimately ordered, would be a focused operation, with its objective the assassination of Saddam Hussein and members of his family.

The document, covering military developments in the Gulf, indicates that the narrow focus would be intended to spur a change in Iraq's regime without causing the country's dismemberment, thus allowing Saddam's successor to begin reconstruction.

In internal discussions in Jerusalem, some officials have suggested that the United States, in its recent air strikes on targets within Iraq, has in fact already begun its military offensive, without having expressly declared this. But this is a minority view. The direction of the position presented to Sharon and Peres is that the current strikes represent a widening of previous military activity.

The document states that the American and British air forces are destroying Iraqi infrastructure in an effort to "bait" Iraq's military, especially its anti-aircraft arm, into a response, in an effort to test its defenses and discover previously undetected targets.