The greatest weapon any general can have is information: it is the key to military success.

The SAS and its marine counterpart, the Special Boat Squadron, are the advance ‘eyes and ears’ of the main battle forces. Their role is to help to plan the main ‘force projection’. Before the invasion they will survey key military targets, monitor the key sites to be defended and identify airstrips and drop zones.

After those locations have been thoroughly assessed, the SAS will return to them only on the eve of war to provide invading allied forces with the latest intelligence and prepare to mark targets for the incoming airstrikes. When the real fighting starts, their job is to hold the key sites and landing zones until relieved by the main forces.

A vital target is Saddam’s 20 or so Scud missiles — many of which are capable of carrying chemical warheads. The Scuds can set off from mobile launchers which take about two hours to ‘warm up’. The SAS will have to work out how to eliminate them before they can be used.

A second priority will be to defend key sites such as power stations, dams, oil wells and refineries. The SAS and SBS will have been visiting these sites in recent weeks to assess how extensively they have been mined. They have to decide how the explosives can be made inert.

Temporary runways for the huge C-130 fuel-carrying planes will need to be marked out. Often in the middle of a desert, these potential airstrips must be tested to ensure they are strong enough.

In any war there are always going to be cock-ups and this war will not be any different. It will be chaos. But it will work.

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