Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker

"President Bush has settled on a war plan for Iraq that would begin with an air campaign shorter than the one for the Persian Gulf war, senior administration officials say. It would feature swift ground actions to seize footholds in the country and strikes to cut off the leadership in Baghdad." [more]

"The Pentagon has hired two giant cargo ships to carry armored vehicles and helicopters, among other war matÈriel, and eight additional cargo ships capable of carrying ammunition, tanks and ambulances. The Air Force is stockpiling weapons, ammunition and spare parts, including airplane engines, at depots in the Persian Gulf region and in the United States. Arsenals of Air Force and Navy precision-guided weapons, which proved devastating in Afghanistan, should be fully replenished by autumn, military officials said." [more]

"Their mission is to hunt relatively small numbers of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who have dispersed to avoid detection. In some ways, it is more like what the United States Army tried to do in the middle of the Vietnam War than it is like the last seven months in Afghanistan. The operation also carries considerable risks: of suffering American casualties, of mistakenly attacking the wrong people, of being misled by faulty intelligence and of inflaming local hostility to foreigners on Afghan soil." [more]

"Afghan allies never arrived and [US] troops became the pointed end of the spear engaging adversaries in the first 18 hours of combat." [more]