"The Saddam regime cannot possibly survive the war for more than 72 hours at most and the liberation of Iraq as a whole would be over in a week," former Kuwait Air Force Chief, Air Vice-Marshal Saber Al-Sweidan, said yesterday. In his view, the main reason would be 48 hours of heavy bombing by the US and its allies, delivering about 1,200 cruise missiles and some 1,800 satellite-controlled bombs. Al-Sweidan added that the most probable war scenarios, and some published Pentagon plans include a firewall, i.e. constant 48-hour bombing, that would probably end the war within five days to a week. It would unsettle the political leadership and lower the spirit of the Republican Army. It would also enable for coalition troops to advance and secure Iraqi oil wells and enter cities in northern and southern Iraq, starting with Kirkuk and Basra. They would then surround and capture Baghdad, toppling the regime. Saddam Hussein's attempts to prolong the war to obtain sympathy and plan coups in neighboring states to keep the US busy would fail, as Iraq has no adequate influence to turn Arabs against their leadership.

Al-Sweidan stressed that the war is imminent. Some 300,000 soldiers have not come to the region to return home without accomplishing US objectives. And some $1.2 billion have already been spent on mobilization and deployment. He Al-Sweidan hoped Iraq would spare the region and its people a bloody confrontation by destroying all weapons of mass destruction and changing the ruling regime. In his view, the capabilities of the Iraqi army are not what they were in 1990 and it poses no threat. The Republican Guards are capable of fighting the allies. They are very well trained, have modern weapons and are totally loyal to the regime. However, the Iraqi military tactics are far inferior to those of the allies. Regarding Iraq's biological and chemical weapons, he said that Saddam had used them before against his own people, but they pose no threat to Kuwait, which has the best network of early detection and alarm systems in the world linked directly to the allies. Of the ballistic missiles in Iraq's possession, the SCUD, Husein and Abbas are not a threat, as they would be detected upon launch and destroyed short of their targets. The Sumoud and Ababeel missiles can only be launched from Baghdad, so Kuwait is beyond their range.