Stardate 20030122.1435

(On Screen): I'm becoming extremely confident in the prediction that the beginning of hostilities will be the 1/31 or 2/1. (I still lean towards 2/1 but Jan 31 is possible).

Australia just ordered a troop ship to move to the Gulf region. British forces are on the move. The US just ordered two more carrier battle groups to deploy.

Most of these forces will reach the theater in about the middle of February, as will the US Marine amphib groups I wrote about. (I miscalculated their speed of movement; they won't arrive by the end of January as I originally said.) That's all completely consistent with the idea of "just in time" deployment. Once air operations begin and once we've attained air supremacy and spent at least a week attacking critical ground targets, the risk of deploying large numbers of men into Kuwait will be much lower.

The fact that two of the four carriers which will be involved won't be available on the 1st isn't important. The first part of the air assault will be almost entirely handled by the USAF, assisted by Tomahawk cruise missiles (the majority of which will be fired by US Navy surface ships and submarines). The first two to four days of jet attacks will be handled by F-117's and B2's, operating in the dark of the moon and intending to neutralize Iraq's air defense radars and eliminating their SAMs.

By the way, if we do indeed use anti-transistor weapons in this war at all, you'll see them used in this initial attack because they will be particularly valuable as a way of blinding enemy radars.

Once that's done, it will mean that any of our jets will be able to operate with impunity at 10,000 feet or higher, out of the range of anti-aircraft artillery, and then USAF B1's and B-52's (the BUFFs, "Big Ugly Fat Fuckers") will start attacking other targets. RAF fighter-bombers and American F-15's and F-16's will also make strikes, as will Navy F-18's. But we don't need all of the Navy's air assets initially. So while jets flying from Constellation and Truman will be involved, it won't be necessary to wait for the arrival of Lincoln and Roosevelt. The reason they'll be there later is that once ground operations start, we'll need more aircraft available to provide close support for the ground troops as they advance. And Lincoln and Roosevelt will arrive just about the same time as the majority of the US Marines, the Australians, US 4th Infantry Division, and the British armor.

All of which lends credence to a report from Russia:

Russia's armed forces have obtained information that the United States and its allies have already decided to launch military action in Iraq from mid-February, news agency Interfax said on Wednesday.

The agency's specialist military news wire AVN, quoting an unnamed high-ranking source in the Russian general staff, said U.S.-led operations would be launched once an attacking force of 150,000 had been assembled in the Gulf.

"According to the information we have, the operation is planned for the second half of February. The decision to launch it has been taken but not yet been made public," the source told the agency, which has generally authoritative contacts in the Russian military and political establishment.

Ground ops do look to begin in the second half of February.

Of course, the speculation in the rest of the report that the primary goal will be to secure Iraq's oil fields is less interesting. It is indeed one of the goals of the operation, but not the primary one. The implication that "it's all about oil" misses the point: the oil fields are immensely valuable for the Iraqi people themselves and what we're going to be trying to prevent is a repeat of 1991 when Kuwait's oil fields were torched. That would not be good for anyone, in Iraq or anywhere else. (In 1991, the smoke plume was actually a health hazard at times in some parts of southern Asia, for instance.)

Powell announced that the use would hold and use the Iraqi oil fields "in trust" for the Iraqi people, and this is what I always expected. There have been rumors that the US would try to use oil sales to recoup some of the cost of the campaign, but I don't believe it. Nor will it be the case that we'll steal the oil, by selling it to ourselves at a depressed price. What I think will happen is that we'll operate the oil fields during the initial military occupation, and sell the oil on the world market at prevailing rate, and then administer that money to finance the reconstruction of Iraq.

But, and this is the key point, we will make the decision about how much Iraqi oil to pump, because we need that ability for the next stage of the war. It is part of what is required before we can, finally, stop pretending that Saudi Arabia is a friend and actually begin to remove the true core of those who oppose us in this war. And when I say "we will make the decision" I don't mean the UN. The decision will be made by the US and UK and its true allies, also meaning not France and not Germany, who