US readies for attack after Saddam rejects ultimatum

With Iraq defiant, units of a US-led invasion force moved into position yesterday to launch a war to oust President Saddam Hussein.

One after Saddam dismissed a US ultimatum to leave Iraq and spare the country a war to oust him, the top US naval commander in the Gulf said the start of the war was "very likely ... within a couple of days."

British US aircraft showered parts of Iraq with leaflets, urging Iraqi soldiers to refrain from using weapons of mass destruction or torching oil wells and advising them to lay down their weapons rather than die for a lost cause.

Kuwaiti sources said troops were moving into the demilitarized zone that straddles the Iraq-Kuwait border.

"Troops walked into the DMZ this morning at around 11am," a Kuwaiti security force source working in the east of the zone said. "American convoys are still driving towards Umm Qasr."

US George W. Bush has given Saddam until 4:15am Iraqi time (9:15am in Taiwan) today to go into exile with his sons.

As Washington urged Iraq's army to stand aside and offer no resistance, Vice Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, gave his forces a pep talk.

"I think it very likely that within a couple of days jets are going to be going off the front of the USS Abraham Lincoln," he told sailors aboard the aircraft carrier.

Bush his main ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have amassed 280,000 troops in the region to kill or capture Saddam and overthrow his government in an enterprise that has created deep diplomatic schisms across the world.

"If we go, the plans that we have are unlike anything anyone has ever seen before," Keating told reporters.

"We can achieve surprise by going about this particular conflict, if we do it, in a way that is very unpredictable and unprecedented in history -- remarkable speed, breathtaking speed, agility, precision and persistence," he said.

Iraq's minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, told reporters in Baghdad that an invasion of Iraq would fail. "What they are facing is definite death," he said in a message to US and British soldiers.

Iraqi vowed to die for Saddam. "We pledge to you that we will follow the path of heroism and martyrdom and we will all be martyrs defending Iraq," parliament said in a letter to Saddam after an emergency session.

In the financial markets, most stocks fell as investors fretting about the length and aftermath of a war sought safety.

Gold, a safe haven in times of trouble, and bonds rose. After falling on hope of a quick war, oil prices rose slightly. The US dollar held steady.

US promise an aerial bombardment of such precision and intensity that it would isolate Saddam and his leadership and stun the Iraqi army into submission.

They say upward of 3,000 satellite-guided bombs and cruise missiles will be unleashed from sea and air on targets vital to Saddam's government in a "shock and awe" start to the war.

Ground are expected to move in during or after a short, intense aerial bombardment to secure Iraq's oil fields and prevent Saddam loyalists torching wells as they did in Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.

Vowing change, Bush says Iraq could provide groups like al-Qaeda with weapons that would exceed the bloodshed caused by the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on US cities.