WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - Military planners at the Pentagon have reportedly put together an extensive list of Iraqi targets to strike if Saddam Hussein continues to defy United Nations weapons inspections.

One DoD official said of the planned bombing campaign, "I expect it to be significant and sustained. I think it's going to go on until we run out of things we think are relevant targets."

The official added that the plans contemplate using unmanned cruise missiles and land- and sea-based aircraft in strikes lasting days, or perhaps even weeks.

Experts say that it would be impossible to hit all of Iraq's biological and chemical weapons materials because of the ease with which they can be hidden. Retired U.S. Air Force General Charles A. "Chuck" Horner, who commanded U.S. and allied air forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, said the task was probably impossible by military means.

Horner said that much of the material might be hidden in "hardened" underground bunkers that are difficult to destroy. He also said that biological agents such as anthrax could be "in practically any laboratory, any food processing plant or hospital."

Elements of Iraq's "elite" Republican Guard could be among the targets if they are units that have safeguarded, secured and participated in hiding biological, chemical or nuclear weapons components.

Among the first things that will be hit be allied forces will be Iraqi air defense guns or missile batteries that threaten allied pilots, command and control facilities or radars that could direct such defenses.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Thomas W. Kelly, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Persian Gulf War, said he expected any U.S. use of force to far outlast a punitive strike in 1996 in which 48 cruise missiles were launched from U.S. ships against Iraqi military targets.

Kelly predicted, "My guess is 40 days. I think it's going to be vastly more robust than anybody thinks."

Kelly emphasized that he was not receiving any "inside" information from his buddies at the Pentagon, but said that General Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "used to work for me, so I think I did a pretty good job of training him."

Kelly added, "You've got to teach this man [Saddam] that we won't stand for it, so we'll come up with a two-pronged effort. If you bomb all the locations where you think his weapons are and then you bomb every single one of his palaces, that's a good phase one."

Phase two, according to Kelly, would likely would target the Republican Guard, which keeps Saddam in power. He said, "I would purposely leave the army out, hoping they would rise up against him."

The "Phase two" of the campaign also could include bombing the Iraqi air force, which includes more than 300 aircraft despite Gulf War losses, plus storage and ammunition depots.