Agents target sites, gather intelligence

By John Donnelly, Globe Staff, 1/5/2003

WASHINGTON - About 100 US Special Forces members and more than 50 Central Intelligence Agency officers have been operating in small groups inside Iraq for at least four months, searching for Scud missile launchers, monitoring oil fields, marking minefield sites, and using lasers to help US pilots bomb Iraqi air-defense systems, according to intelligence officials and military analysts who have talked with people on the teams.

The operations, which also have included small numbers of Jordanian, British, and Australian commandos, are considered by many analysts to be part of the opening phase of a war against Iraq, even though the Bush administration has agreed to a schedule of UN weapons inspections.

On Jan. 27, the UN team will report on whether it has found evidence of a program to develop chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. Soon after, the Bush administration is expected to announce whether Iraq is in ''material breach'' of UN resolutions and whether that is a trigger to an invasion aimed at toppling the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, and his government.

War preparations have been in full swing for months. The Pentagon says that 60,000 troops are now in the Persian Gulf region; that number could double in coming weeks.

Even as President Bush reiterated on Friday that it is not too late to avert war if Saddam Hussein fully complies with the weapons inspections by the United Nations, military analysts say that the bombing, almost daily, by US jets over the mandated no-fly zone, coupled with Special Forces and CIA officers operating inside Iraq, means that a quiet, barely noticed fight has been unfolding. more

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2003