WASHINGTON, Feb 2: The United States is likely to use more lethal weapons this time against Iraq than it did in the 1991 Gulf War, according to a Washington Post report.The Post quoted officials as saying that US has developed new bombs which can not only penetrate three layers of bunkers, but also pick out a targeted room within the bunkers.
The tomahawk cruise missile is one of the weapons that the American military strategists would like to use to destroy Iraq's clandestine military bunkers carrying unqualified weapons of mass destruction, they said.
The missile, which was used to great effect during the Gulf War, has been further refined. It is now linked with the ``global positioning systems,'' i.e. satellites, and can be adjusted for mid-course correction.
Another weapon is Lockheed Martin's Advanced Military Penetrator (AUP), a weapon still in development process but which can be readied at short notice if the pentagon needs it.
According to the Post, it employs a shroud-like outer layermanufactured in such a way as to provide twice the penetration of a normal ``smart bomb.''
It could be outfitted on any number of bombs or missiles, which themselves could deliver vehicles for anything from regular explosives to `thermite' weapons, extreme high temperature incendiary devices that could eliminate their target in 20 to 30 seconds, the Post said.
The Washington Post said, US decision to use `smart bombs' comes in the wake of its firm conviction that Iraq has hidden arsenals of chemical and biological weapons.
The new bomb, besides destroying the clandestine sites, will also burn up chemicals and germs to eliminate the spread of chemicals and germs which could have endangered the lives of Iraqi people as well as those of other countries. People familiar with the Air Force's planning said, the service has been ``working furiously'' on war planning aimed at destroying targets buried deep underground, testing weapons in bunkers and buried networks of tunnels in the Nevada test site, wherenuclear weapons have been tested underground.
``Strategists hope that the combination of improved guidance and greater penetration of some of the new smart bombs would make an air campaign even more effective than that of the Gulf War,'' the report said.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
