Talks on for capitulation deals with Iraqis

Edging toward war, the U.S. military is trying to negotiate "capitulation agreements" with Iraqi commanders under which enemy troops would turn over most of their weapons and return to their barracks rather than be taken as prisoners of war, U.S. officers said on Monday.

Under the agreements, Iraqi officers would be allowed to keep their sidearms and remain in charge of their units as long as they kept a promise to stay out of the battle. U.S. forces would then be free to march toward Baghdad without being bogged down by tens of thousands of prisoners.

The attempt to brush by as many Iraqi units as possible has emerged as one goal of a multi-faceted invasion plan that officers here said could be executed any moment that U.S. President George W. Bush gives the word.

As that moment seemed to draw near, interviews in recent days with Lt Gen James Conway and other senior officers in the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and an attached British contingent provided a glimpse into a war room on the verge of battle.

Perhaps the biggest worry exhibited by field commanders was the potential of a chemical weapons attack. Marine officers said intelligence indicates President Saddam Hussain has given "release authority" to Iraq's regional military commanders and possibly down to corps commanders.

Marine commanders have identified three points where U.S. forces could come under fire from artillery shells or rockets loaded with nerve agents or chemicals: the moment they cross the border from Kuwait, the moment they cross the Euphrates river and the moment they genuinely threaten Baghdad.

Conway, the Marine commander here, said he believes his troops will face a particular threat of attack by weapons of mass destruction when they take on Saddam's elite divisions guarding Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

"The period of greatest threat, to my way of thinking, is when we would start to engage a Republican Guard unit," Conway said in the white tent with the Astroturf floor that serves as his office at the Marines' desert headquarters, 25 miles northwest of Kuwait City and 25 miles south of the Iraqi border.

Seeking the capitulation accords, the U.S. side has been in communication with Iraqi commanders through radio, e-mail and intermediaries including past Iraqi defectors, according to U.S. officials in Washington.

Asked if any Iraqi commanders had accepted the offer, Conway replied, "We're encouraged that could happen in some cases."

"Essentially they're out of the fight and we move on," said Conway, who will lead the largest ground force into Iraq if Bush orders an attack.

"Their officers would be allowed to retain their sidearms to keep order and control. We think we afford them a certain amount of dignity in a situation like that, as opposed to standing around with their hands in their pockets in a POW camp. That's the way we'd much rather do business."

In another sign military action is imminent, the United Nations halted monitoring activities along the Iraq-Kuwait border on Monday and withdrew its remaining contingent of observers, who travelled south to Kuwait City.

The UN Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission, consisting mostly of Bangladeshi troops, had been in place along the 124-mile border since the end of the Gulf War in 1991. They were awaiting further orders to evacuate the country, officials said.

At the same time, the U.S. Embassy ordered all non-essential personnel out of Kuwait and advised other Americans here "to depart immediately." The British Embassy in Kuwait City issued a similar warning and British and American schools in the Kuwaiti capital were closing.

A European diplomat said the two biggest concerns in Kuwait City were that the country could become the target of an Iraqi missile strike at the outbreak of hostilities and that terrorist attacks could be directed against Westerners. He said his embassy has advised its nationals who remain in Kuwait to avoid crowds, vary their routes and exercise discretion.

Weather reports indicated major dust storms may roll into the region soon, possibly delaying the launch of the widely expected military offensive. In addition, the Marines and the Army find themselves short of material needed to build bridges to traverse rivers and other obstacles, and of bullet-stopping ceramic plates to be inserted in troops' flak jackets.

Commanders have warned against expecting the relatively bloodless victory they enjoyed during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Conway, who commands 85,000 U.S. and British troops, has designated about 900 Marines as replacements for those injured or killed in fighting.

Conway said Saddam's military in recent days has begun dispersing forces and sheltering some in underground bunkers to protect them from bombs. "He's going to a war footing," Conway said. "There's movement all around the country, there really is, in just about all sectors.... The movement is more pronounced."

Like their Army cousins, the Marines have been preparing to rush to Baghdad as quickly as possible in an effort to end the war before any civil unrest gets out of control. As part of that approach, over the past three weeks the Marines have built a new dirt airstrip in the Kuwaiti desert capable of handling C-130 Hercules cargo planes that could help jump troops and supplies farther and faster into Iraq.

Another part of that plan will be bypassing weaker, regular Iraqi army units that U.S. officers figure are less eager to fight. But commanders do not want a repeat of 1991, when they found themselves forced to shelter and feed tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers who threw down their guns and surrendered.

The Marines face a daunting challenge handling their own food and water needs, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel their vehicles consume each day. The Marines prefer to operate within 120 miles of the water but could find their supply line stretched about 300 miles to Baghdad.

Conway said he is most worried about the ability of engineers to get his forces across rivers and ravines, particularly if Saddam's forces blow up infrastructure. "Bridging is a shortfall" among all U.S. land forces in Kuwait, Conway said, adding that Marine and Army commanders will have to determine a way to divide their available resources in the next few days.

Col Matthew Blackledge, chief logistics officer for the Marine force, said there should be enough bridging material as long as Iraq does not blow up all its bridges. And he said the bulletproof plates for body armour continue to arrive as fast as manufacturers can make them; front-line Marines will get them first.

"We're ready," Blackledge said. "Nothing's perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. But my job is to make sure it's close enough that we can get the job done without putting people's lives at risk unnecessarily."