
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 25, 1991                   TAG: 9102250135
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. ON DRIVE TO BREAK ELITE REPUBLICAN GUARD

The beginning of a ground campaign has unleashed the U.S. military to dismantle as much of the Iraqi military as possible and pursue Saddam Hussein's forces in and near Kuwait until they surrender, abandon their heavy equipment or are killed, according to senior officials.

The pursuit of these goals is likely to bring much more difficult and potentially bloody fighting tonight or Tuesday with Iraq's Republican Guard forces, according to these sources.

U.S., British and French forces now moving north and east behind dug-in Republican Guard units will be in a position by tonight or Tuesday to engage those forces, sources said. Most of them are on the Iraqi side of the Iraq-Kuwait border, where they will be pursued. "There won't be any sanctuary inside Iraq for those forces who've been involved in occupying Kuwait," Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said Sunday.

Though the military is operating under strict rules requiring that Iraqi forces be encouraged and given an opportunity to surrender, senior officers Sunday said that they were engaged in what amounted to "total war" - a more elaborate mission than simply expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Another senior official said the goal is to make sure the eight divisions of the Republican Guard in the Kuwait theater "don't escape."

"The next day's fighting will be the real crux of the operation," one government analyst said. He said that the level of resistance displayed by the Republican Guard - little of which has been engaged so far - will "tell the tale" of how long the war will last and what the toll of U.S. and allied casualties will be.

Several informed officials said the U.S. and allied plan for today and Tuesday is to continue pushing northward inside Kuwait toward the capital, Kuwait City, while simultaneously racing from Saudi Arabia through southern Iraq to the north and west of dug-in Iraqi Republican Guard forces, long considered the "center of gravity" within Iraq's military.

The aim of the massive flanking maneuver to the west of Kuwait is to seal off those forces from communications and supply lines stretching south from the Iraqi heartland, blocking any escape to sites farther north.

Army Maj. Dan Grigson of the 101st Airborne Division, who was engaged in a helicopter assault on Iraq, described the mission Sunday to an Associated Press reporter who was on the assault. "Don't worry about Kuwait, it's a piece of dirt," Grigson said. "We're going after the Iraqi army."

There were several indications Sunday that the thrust to isolate the Republican Guard positions was well under way, but far from complete. French President Francois Mitterrand, quoting his defense minister, said French ground troops had advanced roughly 30 miles inside Iraq, a distance that U.S. officials say is less than one-third of way to the allies' target.

by CNB