Stephen "Vodkapundit" Green talks about the air war in the coming dust-up in Iraq.

Here's my brief take: Because we can't leave the oil fields alone for the next 48 hours, we were almost certainly in action before his speech. That means a "measels" strategy of widespread concurrent outbreaks and defections led by Special Forces and CIA SOGs, with air cover available if anything moves. The ground has almost certainly been prepared for this iin Kurdistan and the Shi'ite areas, and the west has been crawling with scud-hunters for a long time. Should more be required, airborne assaults and heliborne Marine concentrations can land quickly in and around the measels outbreaks, and the "main event" can begin.

That main event will not be the start of war - it's already on. What it will be, is a ratcheting up of its intensity. Starting with the kind of sledgehammer "Shock & Awe" decapitation plan Vodpundit describes and Unlearned Hand places in perspective. At the same time, heavy armor rolls from Kuwait, moving fast. Seaborne Marines would be tasked with seizing a landing zone, but possibly with a time delay of a day or two unless intel is telling them resistance in these areas is already taken care of. If it isn't, the gap gives some time for confusion to work, armor to catch up and signal intercepts via ECHELON and taps on fiber-optic cables (conveyed via TENCAP) to tell commanders if they missed any key WMD sites.

The combination will be devastating, even if the Iraqis decide to resist. The widespread raids and outbreaks themselves will make it damn near impossible to figure out which field reports are concentrations, and which are just small outbreaks. If an Iraqi commander comes down with their full force, they could be punching at shadows. But dispersal just runs lets the Green Beret types play hit and run, preferably at night, calling in air strikes and using superior situational awareness to dance around you while the larger force nearby (if there is one) systematically mops you up. Either way, you're chewed up and spit out. And where does one target WMDs, even if you're a local commander with authorization to fire them? Again, hitting at shadows and fast-moving targets.

Some of the raids and even major landings will of course target WMD sites (possibly including these too), as securing those needs to be priority one. The oil fields would be priority 2 - don't want those going up in flames and creating an environmental disaster, but it won't kill thousands or touch off Aramageddon if they do. So let's hope Special Forces have been doing good work in the south and that the Marine heliborne forces land hard and fast.

Follow on forces consolidate these gains, but the psychological shock of this opening punch may make their job easier by paralyzing resistance or even triggering widespread surrender/defection. If not, Iraqi units face the full might of allied airpower and the prospect of attack from any direction.

These initial phases probably won't be the biggest challenge, though; it'll be the logistics of keeping the supplies going as fast as possible to chew up/encircle territory in the dash to Baghdad. The faster we move, the more inclined enemy commanders will be toward surrender. The key thing to remember about dictators - when their power to punish looks set to expire, so are they because obedience often collapses completely. And when we get to Baghdad, well, Allied forces are ready to handle urban warfare. As Trent Telenko notes, they've faced worse and triumphed.

The first wave Special Forces operations will be in progress now - no point in giving Saddam any time to blow the oil fields or ready WMDs. The rest is about to go.

The time has come.