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The U.S. assault was stunning as much for its apparent precision as for its violence. Military experts say the Pentagon is concentrating on effects-based bombings. In previous wars, the U.S. military has tried to take out command-and-control facilities by destroying every power station in a given area, but precision-guided technology allows U.S. warplanes to pinpoint the power plants that serve Saddam and his aides and spare the rest. Indeed, even while Saddam's palaces came under a ferocious barrage, the lights stayed on in Baghdad.
For the allied command, the hope remains that the mere demonstration of American air power will persuade large numbers of Saddam's best trained and most loyal soldiers, the Republican and Special Republican Guard, to surrender before the U.S. and British forces begin a siege of Baghdad. A senior Administration official told TIME that the military has "killed a significant number of the Republican Guard. We're trying to break their will and get them to go home." Defense officials predicted last week that up to a quarter of the Republican Guard troops would surrender if the details were worked out. "They're using the psychological instrument to collapse [the enemy's] will through intimidation and the creation in his mind of inevitable defeat," says Robert Scales, a retired Army major general. U.S. military officials are convinced that if Saddam manages to retain command and control of his forces, he will try to unleash chemical and biological weapons against allied troops and that most of those weapons are in the hands of forces close to the capital. Among the soldiers moving toward Baghdad last week, the specter of unconventional warfare was never far from their minds, as they endured the heat of their biochemical suits while riding in tanks and armored personnel vehicles. "We fully expect to face a dirty battlefield at some point," says Colonel Daniel Allyn, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade. "I don't look forward to the fight of that kind, but I am confident it will not defeat us."
For the Administration, uncovering Saddam's weapons stores is critical to blunting opposition to the war. The U.S. also hopes that scenes of liberated Iraqis cheering the Americans' arrival would silence the antiwar crowd, but those images were proving scarce. In cities liberated by the allies last week, there were few signs of jubilation. While glad to be freed from Saddam's terror, the mostly Shi'ite population remained suspicious of U.S. motives and fearful that the U.S. would abandon them, as it did during uprisings after Gulf War I. Muhsen Salem, 24, a farmer from Safwan, says he is "very happy now but scared the Americans might leave." Many Iraqis say they are disappointed that humanitarian aid did not begin flowing as soon as U.S. and British forces moved in. Military officials say the second wave of invasion forces — the civil-affairs officers who will administer the allied relief effort — are heading toward the cities under American control. But it may still be weeks before significant amounts of food and medical aid arrive.