Russian Military Expert: Principal Aim of US War Against Iraq is Testing State-of-the-art Weapons

Russian military analyst Vladimir Slipchenko believes that the main aim of a possible US war against Iraq is a large-scale testing of state-of-the-art types of high precision weapons. "It is this task that is a priority for the US. All other aims are either concomitant or represent open misinformation," the military expert told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta government publication.

In his words, the Pentagon buys from the military industrial complex only those kinds of weapon that were tested in the conditions of a real war and got a quality certificate on the battlefield. After a series of "reality experiments" - wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan - many US military industry corporations already got their right to sell their high precision weapons to the Pentagon. These corporations include Lockheed, General Electric, and Loral. But a lot of other well-known companies still lack orders from the US military department, and the new war on Iraq will give them this possibility, Slipchenko thinks. The newspaper says he is one of the leading Russian specialists on future wars.

He estimates Iraq's chances in the possible war in the following way: Iraq is strong and ready to fight for its every facility, but the total of 600,000 soldiers, 220 warplanes, 2,200 tanks, 1,900 artillery cannons, about 500 salvo rocket-launching systems, 6 launchers for Scud missiles, 110 antiaircraft missile complexes and 700 antiaircraft installations "will turn out useless" in the forthcoming showdown.

In his words, there will be no regular battlefield warfare as such. "The Americans will methodically eliminate by means of high precision missiles all the key facilities of Iraq's state and military infrastructure, and then eliminate the personnel by missile and bomb strikes," the Russian expert believes.

In his forecast, no less than half a million people are going to die in case of war.