The US has adopted a risky strategy, according to Prof Paul Rogers of the Peace Studies department at Bradford University. "They have to ensure the Iraqi regime opens up everything for inspection and gives absolute assurances of non-interference with inspections.
"Unless the US use of force is so much that it forces Saddam to do this, he wins."
Depending on who you listen to, bombing raids on Iraq may topple Saddam Hussein, consolidate his position, force him to allow UN weapons inspections, destroy his weapons, release lethal chemicals into the atmosphere or produce a combination of the above.
The key problem now for those contemplating military action is to ensure that the outcome is the one they are seeking. However there is no agreement among analysts on what the objective will be, let alone whether it is achieveable.
The choice of targets and the force of the attacks will show what outcome is being sought - whether the US is seeking simply to force Saddam to allow weapons inspections, or whether it is attempting to destabilise and bring down his regime.
According to Prof Rogers it is probable there will be a low-intensity and prolonged attack on Iraq rather than one swift and massive strike, and there is no guarantee that this will work. "The US build-up of airpower is nothing like the scale of 1991," he says. "It won't be a `slambang' couple of days of huge bombing, but a series of attacks every few days over a few weeks. It could be quite protracted."
Predictions that Saddam will cave in the face of US military attacks are premature, he believes. "If the core aim of Saddam and those around him is to survive, then very close behind is the aim of holding on to his weapons of mass destruction, no matter what."
Terry Taylor, assistant director at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, agrees the basic US aim is to force Saddam to climb down on the issue of weapons inspection, rather than to topple him. "The desired outcome is that Iraq allows the UN inspectors continue with their work in the same way as before," he says.
"This will happen if there is sufficient effect on Iraq's military infrastructure to force the administration to assess the cost of continuing," says Mr Taylor, who has also worked in Iraq with the United Nations Special Committee on Iraq (UNSCOM) carrying out weapons inspections. He is more confident that military strikes will work. "It is wrong to think that people in Bagdhad are mad. They are not. Military action has worked in the past and can again."
But Arab hostility to the US over the failing Middle East peace process will make it more difficult for the US to create a Gulf coalition against Saddam. "The political conditions are different now. There has been a lack of progress in the Middle East peace process, and a perception that the United States has not been doing enough to put pressure on [the Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu on land for peace. So even though most Middle East states are antiSaddam, the US will have some difficulty getting enthusiastic support."
The key military aim must be to damage Iraq's military infrastructure. "If the wherewithal of the military regime is damaged further, then the means by which he wields power will be weakened so much as to make it impossible for him to continue.
"But it has to be a serious attack. I don't think they'll pussyfoot around. I'd speculate there will be a tough strike, and then a breather to allow time for both sides to decide what to do next."
As for fears of what will happen if missiles actually hit some of these lethal chemicals, he says this option is still the lesser of two evils. "It is less dangerous than leaving them in Saddam's hands with the risk that he would use them against others. Don't forget he has used these weapons against his own people."
Prof Rogers does not believe there will be attacks on suspected stockpiles of nerve agents and biological weapons because of the potential for these materials to escape. "They will first attack air defences, then installations concerned with intelligence and communications, Republican Guard facilities, factories producing conventional munitions, so-called palaces, and possibly power stations and bridges."
Mr Taylor believes the targets will be centres of military power including communications facilities, headquarters, planes, tanks and other military hardware.
Not so, according to Abdullah Mutawi, an international lawyer with the New York-based human rights organisation, the Centre for Economic and Social Rights. "The coming military campaign is probably going to be directed at the civilian infrastructure as well as military sites.
"They have talked of hitting Republican Guard units, but assuming Saddam moves his Republican Guard units into the cities, they become non targets. What you're left with are command and control sites and power stations, which affect civilians as well as the military. Civilians will be hit, if not directly, indirectly."
Mr Mutawi's organisation questions both the morality and the effectiveness of economic sanctions and military action against Iraq. "Our estimate is that 700,000 children have died as a result of sanctions. The UN figures say 1.2 million civilians, adults and children, have died." Yet Saddam is still in power, he says, and still has the chemical weapons the West is so concerned about.
The alternative to sanctions and military action is an arms embargo, he says. "UNSCOM must do what it can, but we have to isolate Iraq from the possibility of acquiring any more weapons".
Mr Mutawi also disputes the assumption that Saddam will back down and allow the UN arms inspectors to do their work once he has been hit by a US-led military strike. "Saddam and the people around him protect themselves very well," he says, and once they don't feel under personal threat are unlikely to back down.
