Hi-tech bombs for a bloodless victory

The Gulf War could be won by a new weapon - a bomb designed not to kill but to disrupt the enemy by "decapitating" its electronic command and communications systems.

In the offensive by the allied coalition, the aim of the US is that Saddam's military electronic eyes and ears could be blinded within 72 hours, leaving Baghdad vulnerable to the invasion teams as they race to capture the capital.

The bombs are known as High Powered Microwave (HPM) weapons and derived from the more commonly known "e-bombs" - the Electro Magnetic Pulse bomb.

HPM bombs radiate an intensely focused and gigantic shock wave of electricity, like a million lightning bolts hurled at one target in a fraction of a second. The effect is to fry the electrical innards of computers, radios, communication systems, mobile phones - anything that runs on electrical power.

The United States Air Force has successfully tested an explosive generator that launches one billion watts of power in one millionth of a second. An HPM pulse moves so quickly that it attacks and destroys before ordinary surge protectors have time to react.

The US is thought to have around a dozen of these weapons. They would almost certainly be used first against Saddam's chemical and biological storage, manufacturing and missile-launch facilities. Frying their electronic controls would eliminate the need for conventional bombs that are in danger of sending plumes of deadly biological agents into the air that could drift for miles, infecting innocent civilians and friendly forces.

The effect of using HPM bombs in towns and cities is potentially huge. Car engines will splutter and die, traffic lights and burglar alarms go haywire, public transport grinds to a halt, telephone relays, television and radio communications and the internet will go silent.

Water, sewage and fuel distribution systems controlled by electrical pumps and computers will shut down. Emergency response units will lose communications and some mobility. Circuits in offices, banks and stores will fry. The regional power grid will be an early casualty. In these circumstances, deaths are inevitable.

The HPM effect was discovered by accident in 1962 during US testing of nuclear weapons. When one bomb exploded 400km above Johnston Island in the Pacific, 30 strings of streetlights went out in Hawaii and burglar alarms were triggered.

The secretive figure behind the technology is a woman - a USAF colonel called Eileen Walling. In the late Nineties she was director of the USAF's High Power Microwave Programme.

The bomb's high-powered pulses enter electrical equipment through sockets which house antennae or the inlet wires that power the equipment. It is almost impossible to shield equipment against the rays. The deadly pulses also find scores of other conduits such as power and water lines, vents, cracks and seams underground in their hunt for targets.

US Commander General Tommy Franks is now faced with a dilemma. On the one hand it is a highly tempting option - it could possibly prevent the nightmare of prolonged street fighting inside Baghdad, involving hand-to-hand combat in the crowded alleys of the city. Bad for the victims, bad for the politicians, bad for public opinion.

So if Franks orders the use of the new weapons, and they work as planned, Saddam's defence forces will be partially paralysed; unable to communicate properly, to launch missiles, use their computers or phones - nothing that matters will work properly. That scenario could result in the allies walking into Iraq's capital city without serious opposition.

On the other hand, because no one has ever tried these weapons, the consequences for the civilian population might be very grave indeed. The bomb that doesn't kill humans could still end up costing many innocent lives.

US specialists are also concerned that the effects of a pulsed weapon attack on the network could affect hole-in-the-wall cash dispensers in, of all places, France. The French originally helped Saddam install his main computer networks which play a major part in his air defence system. Destroying those communications links could have ripple effects on the French mainland.

Given the state of relations between Washington and Paris right now, that is unlikely to lose the Pentagon any sleep.

Plague Wars, by Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg, is published by Macmillan