New York, July 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Although world leaders appear to be in deadly earnest over warnings that Saddam must be deposed by force, some in the U.S. are asking why a blueprint for the conflict was leaked at the moment when sleaze scandals hit a new peak, Said the British daily the Guardian Sunday, July 14.

In an article entitled “war clouds gather as hawks lay their plans”, the paper said that the different signs about a close U.S. attack on Iraq could be a way to distract the world from U.S. financial scandals.

These signs include news about a Jordanian prince attending a meeting of Iraqi army defectors who are discussing what to do with their country once Saddam is dead and gone, or American intelligence operatives in northern Iraq gathering information on minefields and Iraqi troop dispositions, or officials revealing that Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon's second most senior figure, will visit Turkey next week to talk tactics and that Tony Blair has been invited to travel to Camp David later this year to meet President George Bush and discuss plans for war.

“The signs appear unambiguous. This weekend the message is clear. Get ready for war,” the paper said.

But then the paper said “Or is it? Last week's frenzied speculation about imminent conflict has raised as many questions as it has provided answers. Why were officials at the Pentagon, the State Department or London's Ministry of Defense leaking so liberally?”.

It also said: “was it a smoke screen for some secret hitherto undisclosed strategy? Was the war fever engineered to destabilize Saddam Hussein? Or were Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Co merely distracting attention from domestic difficulties?”

The first leaks came 10 days ago when a five-inch thick dossier detailing plans for an invasion of Iraq involving 250,000 men was handed to the New York Times. The story went swiftly around the world, the paper said.

Last Sunday, The Guardian published the results of its own investigation: into the growing indications that the Americans hoped to use Jordan as a jumping-off point for at least some units in the assault.

For the rest of the week a series of stories indicating that a war with Iraq in the new year was certain shared the headlines with the appalling news from the world's stock markets, it added.

To some, it was a proof of cynical manipulation. In recent weeks, there has been a plunge in public confidence in the ability of the President and his party to manage the economy and the administration's own personal honesty, the Guardian said.

'It's certainly strange that the more the finance scandals approach the White House, the harder and sharper the plans for an attack on Iraq,' said one staffer in the office of Democrat congressman Henry Waxman of California.

Critics of Bush point out that the battle plan was leaked just as the sleaze scandals reached a climax and began to implicate the President himself.

However, there is one question that analysts say is getting none of the attention that it should, whether Bush goes for the Surgical Strike or the Big Battalions approach: What happens next?

According to the paper, although that there are many scenarios of the U.S. attack on Iraq, what is most worrying is that there is no clear map through to the endgame. The prognosis for stability is not great. The important questions are how do we avoid a bloody settling of scores and how do we stop the Iraqi people turning against the Americans, the paper added.

At the London conference last week, what would happen after Saddam went was the main topic of conversation. 'Given Iraq's 40-year history of repression, it is highly likely that blood will fill the streets,' said Major-General Saad Obeidi, in charge of psychological warfare before defecting in 1986. 'We have to prevent this.'