WASHINGTON Ñ U.S. military and defense chiefs are debating the composition and size of a force required to quickly topple the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The debate concerns the reliance on U.S. air power to destroy the Saddam regime. Officials said the debate pits the U.S. Central Command against the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"There is the beginning of a debate going on in Central Command and in the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the merits of a larger U.S. ground force versus a small U.S. ground force supporting Iraqi opposition troops, a la the Afghan model," a U.S. official was quoted by the Washington Times as saying.

Gen. Tommy Franks, chief of U.S. Central Command, is said to envision a U.S. force against Iraq that would be composed of five divisions, or between 200,000 and 250,000 troops.

During the Gulf war, Washington used 550,000 soldiers to liberate Kuwait. Franks wanted a similar ground force contingent for the campaign in Afghanistan, a proposal that was rejected.

The Joint Chiefs want a smaller ground force and a military campaign based on heavy air strikes using precision guided weapons. The force would be composed largely of about 70,000 people, largely from special operations units. The Defense Department appears to side with the Joint Chiefs.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that the discussions regarding a military campaign stem from an administration assessment that a coup in Iraqi is unlikely to succeed. The CIA was said to have favored the overthrow of Saddam by Iraqi military officers.

Over the weekend, U.S. and British warplanes flew over southern Iraq to enforce the no-fly zone. An Iraqi military spokesman said the allied fighter-jets, backed by an early-warning alert aircraft, conducted 34 sorties on Saturday.

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