New York: Viewing the war with US as a "life and death" campaign for his regime, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has given his commanders the authority to use chemical weapons if communications with Baghdad were cut during the war, a US media report said quoting intelligence intercepts.

"We must use everything we have," Hussein is quoted as telling his commanders during a meeting in August, a report in 'Newsweek', quoting unidentified sources, said.

Preparations for war are intensifying in the region, the report said.

It quotes an Arab intelligence officer in the region as saying US special forces teams are already inside Iraq, hunting Scud missiles and probing defenses. And the US Army has deployed in Mafraq in Jordan, ready to open a Western front, according to critics in Amman.

Jordanian businessmen were quoted as saying American Army has invited tenders for a hospital and airstrip.

It said a division's worth of Abrams main battle tanks have disappeared from Europe and may have been spotted atop transport trucks in Kuwait last week. But the Americans insist that any tanks brought in recently were for routine exercises and would soon go back home.

However, the magazine quotes a Western official offering a different interpretation: "The Americans have to convince (Iraqi leader) Saddam Hussein they're serious."

Meanwhile, Arab intelligence officials in two countries, expected the Americans to attack Iraq as early as mid-November with some privately saying they would like US to move soon.

"It must be quick, it must be strong and it must be decisive," an unidentified Arab minister was quoted a saying.

Meanwhile, Iraq said its ground defences fired on US and British warplanes raiding the South of the country on October 6, forcing them to "flee" to their bases in Kuwait.

"Enemy warplanes" staged armed sorties against 18 areas in the South of the country, and were "forced to flee to their bases in Kuwait under fire from surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns", said an armed forces spokesman quoted by the official INA news agency.

PTI