Last night's surgical strikes by Allied aircraft may have achieved their aim of incapaciting the Iraqi command and control apparatus, US intelligence claimed tonight.

Officials believe the unexpected air attack may have succeeded because of the failure by the Iraqis to muster a co-ordinated response to the attack.

US officials said it was too early to determine whether Saddam and his sons were caught in the attack, but there was growing optimism it had left the Iraqi leadership in disarray.

Early intelligence reports suggested Iraq's leadership was not organising any co-ordinated response to the US attack, suggesting the Iraqi regime might be in chaos or cut off from the military.

There was no co-ordination in security and military efforts around Baghdad and the rest of the country, the officials said.

Military officials ''believe it is significant that there is a lack of co-ordination and significant resistance to what we did,'' one official said.

''It is little things here and there. Some individual commanders are hunking down while others are launching small attacks and setting fires,'' the official said.

At the Pentagon, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said military planners had good reason to believe Iraqi leaders were at the site of the bombing.

''We are in communication with still more people who are officials of the military at various levels - the regular army, the Republican Guard, the Special Republican Guard - who are increasingly aware that it's going to happen, he's going to be gone,'' Rumsfeld said.

The sources said US intelligence suspected Saddam's sons, Qusai and Uday, may have been with him during the strike on a complex where Iraqi leaders were suspected of sleeping.

Even if Saddam and his sons were not killed, U.S. officials hoped the surprise attack would leave them distrustful of their inner circle, suspecting betrayal by one of their advisers.

Officials said the surprise attack was the product of a complex operation that benefited from human intelligence, electronic spying, special military operations and changes in technology that permitted military chiefs to quickly reconfigure the cruise missiles for a special, pinpointed attack.

The officials said the attack began with about three dozen cruise missiles that levelled the above-ground structures and which were followed up quickly by Air Force F-117 precision bunker-busting bombs that could penetrate deep into the leadership compound.

20/03/2003