Plan aimed at Iraqi commanders raises doubts

WASHINGTON — Defense and intelligence officials are raising doubts about a classified Pentagon plan to persuade Iraqi commanders to hold back their most lethal weapons in the event of war with the United States.

Officials familiar with the psychological operations, or "psyops," plan say its aim is to persuade Iraqi weapons handlers to disobey any order Saddam Hussein issues to launch chemical or biological attacks in the face of a U.S. invasion. Methods would include hacking into Iraqi military computers, dropping leaflets on Iraqi military bases, jamming Iraqi radio and television and substituting signals sent by special U.S. broadcasting aircraft, and contacting key officers through clandestine intermediaries or even e-mail.

Bush administration officials tout the plan as a way of mitigating the risk of war with Iraq. Senior Pentagon and intelligence officials counter that Saddam's commanders would get their orders at the point of a gun. Disobedience, they argue, would amount to suicide.

The operations are part of a larger plan that seeks to persuade Iraqis to drop their weapons once a U.S. attack begins. Such tactics paid dividends in the 1991 Gulf War, as attested by the large number of Iraqi prisoners found carrying leaflets from U.S. warplanes. The overall psychological war plan, in turn, is a major facet of the Pentagon's invasion plan for Iraq, which President Bush is considering.

One senior defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the psyops would have some value in persuading conventional Iraqi forces to surrender. Even so, the official said, the men in charge of Iraqi chemical or biological weapons and missile forces are likely Saddam's most loyal soldiers, who are motivated by fanaticism or fear, or both.