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Tommy Franks briefs Bush
on new plan on Iraq

President George W Bush has been briefed by the commander of the US forces in the Gulf, Tommy Franks, on a new plan to invade Iraq with much less than the 250,000 troops proposed earlier.

The new plan would require only 50,000 to 80,000 troops and air power to defeat and overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The army general outlined this plan at the White House on Monday, which also happened to be the third briefing of Bush by Franks on Iraq.

In the two earlier briefings, he had wanted 250,000 troops to accomplish the task. That would have needed a three-month buildup and overcoming the basing problem posed by major Arab states like Saudi Arabia which wants no part in the war.

The briefing, The Wall Street Journal said, hewed closer to a plan that is gaining currency among senior administration officials, involving only 50,000 to 80,000 troops backed by heavy air power, according to a Pentagon official.

The operation, under the new plan, will begin with a swift attack on Hussein's elite Republican Guards, who are concentrated outside Baghdad, with the hope that the regular Iraqi Army would abandon Hussein and the fight, the report said.

Senior Pentagon officials told the Journal that Washington was still months away from a pre-emptive strike against Iraq and that no firm decision has been made to use military force to unseat Hussein.

PTI

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