WASHINGTON, Nov 17: Despite major improvements in the US arsenal since the end of the 1991 Gulf war, America's ability to burrow into Iraq's weapons bunkers and destroy chemical or biological stocks remain severely limited.The Iraqi president has refused to comply with UN resolutions that allow inspections of facilities where deadly nerve gas, biological toxins and nuclear weapons are suspected of being produced.

About 120 US air force warplanes are based in Saudi Arabia and 50 in Turkey. Next week another 100 will be in the Gulf when the aircraft carrier USS George Washington joins the USS Nimitz there.

Because there appears little chance that American ground troops will be inserted into the region in great numbers, any US military operation in the region would most likely involve air strikes.

But military experts fear Saddam is using the absence of the inspections to hide his chemical and biological weapons deep underground -- out of range of most US bombs.

``The US military still lacks a precision weapon to attack hardened and deeply buried targets, and that's exactly where we think Saddam has placed his weapon stocks,'' said Barbara Starr, a specialist on chemical weapons for Jane's Defence Weekly. ``In the six and half years since the war, the US military has not fielded any significant new capability to attack these types of targets,'' Starr added.

While the military would like to have a weapon that can penetrate 20 feet into hardened sites, current weapons go down six to ten feet depending upon whether they are moving through such materials as rock or types of concrete, she said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.